


Shoreline

by Latios



Series: Mermaid au [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, human!hinata, mermaid au, mermaid!Kageyama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Latios/pseuds/Latios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata Shouyou and his sister are sent to their grandfather's for the summer, and he's absolutely sure he's going to be bored for a majority of it, Alone with only a beach to keep him company.</p><p>He's terribly mistaken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sandy Beaches and Mermaids

_“Do we have to?”_ Hinata drags out the words, his low groaning fills the air while his sister cheers, running around the table, arms flailing about and yelling happily.

“Don’t sound so upset about this, Shouyou.” His mother chides gently, calling Natsu back to the table, who plopped back down beside her brother at the dinner table soon after. “You haven’t seen your grandfather in years! He’ll be so excited to see you.” 

“Yeah, but he lives so far away, and I won’t be able to see my Izumi and Kouji for the whole summer if I go…” Hinata sulks, slouching low into his chair.

His mother sighs as she goes back to her dinner, speaking in between bites. “You know, it’s only going to be about a month and a half, you won’t miss your friends that much.” After another bite, she adds. “He lives right on the beach, so you and Natsu can swim the whole summer away! It’s basically private too, since not many people live in the area and your grandfather lives in a very secluded area there. You’ll have fun, I promise.” 

His mother drops it at that, going back to her dinner in silence, as if saying _“case closed: you’re going.”_ Natsu’s chant’s of _‘Beach! Beach! Beach!'_ fill the room.

Shouyou only groans. _‘This is going to be the worst summer ever,’_ he thinks, pouting as he finishes his dinner.

~

He says goodbye to all his friends on the last day of school, telling them he won’t be going to stay in Miyagi for the summer. They frown at the sudden change of plans, but it passes quickly.  
“We’ll see you when summer ends, don’t worry,” Izumi eventually sighs when seeing how torn up Hinata is about it. “The break will probably pass before you know it. My family has gone on surprise family vacations before too, so I understand at least.”

“We’ll still miss you though...I was so excited to hang out.” Kouji pouts, and Izumi elbows him. “It’s not like Shouyou has a choice,” he says. Glaring at Kouji. He turns back to Hinata with a smile. “It doesn’t sound like it’ll be boring though, you’ll have a whole beach to yourself it seems from what your mom said!”

 _i guess, but that doesn't mean i wont be alone over half the time_ he thinks. “I’m sure I will have fun, but I wish it was a little closer so I could visit you guys though.”

“We feel the same,” Kouji nods. The bell signalling the end of the day rings, ad the students start to shuffle out of the classroom.

Hinata gathers his volleyball equipment, and is almost out the door—but Sugawara stops him by the Entrance. 

“I heard your going to be at your grandfathers’ house for the summer,” he says. “I have a friend who lives in that area, actually. I haven’t seen him for a long time.” He sighs.

“You do?” Hinata asks.

“Yeah, I miss him dearly. You know, the area is really pretty out there—you’re sure to have fun on your trip! If I remember correctly, the water is perfect temperature around this time.” he chirps.

With a pat on Hinata’s back, Sugawara walks on ahead, waving. “Have an awesome summer, Hinata! See you at volleyball club when school gets back in!”

Hinata waves back, dazed and smiling to Sugawara. He was a great vice-captain of the volleyball club, and it was nice to hear from him that he’d visited the place Hinata was going to. It took away some of his doubts about spending his break there.

~

When he arrives at his grandfather’s house, he exited the car to a big whiff of salty ocean air, and felt the grainy, soft sand making its way through his sandals as soon as he steps out of the car. 

He feels less lonely just seeing the view—a wide span of white sand, crystal blue water was gushing up against the surface in waves. He’ll miss his friends, but it’s not like he gets to see his grandfather every day, like his mother said. This would be fun. 

His sister, still excited (and humming), brought him out of his thoughts by slamming the car door, making her way around the vehicle only to grasp Hinata’s hand. 

“Aren’t you excited?” she asks, and the cheer in her voice instantly brings his spirits up. He liked hanging out with Natsu, and he could use this trip to make it up to her for always staying late at volleyball practice.

“Yeah, We’ll have lots of fun! We can go swimming together, and go treasure hunting for pretty seashells! I can also teach you how to play volleyball too, now that schools’ out.” He says, and her eyes absolutely glow. 

“Do you think we can go catch fish with my net, too?” she gasps, in awe. 

“Of course,” He laughs, and she cheers in response.

He sees his mother walk around the car and put his bags by his feet, smiling at them afterward. “You guys will be okay, right?” she says, fond eyes looking between them both, as she prepares to leave. 

Natsu hugs their mother first, little arms reaching only to her torso if she stretches, and Hinata goes to hug her after. “We’ll be fine, mom” he says, and waves to her as she gets into the car, and with a little hesitation—drives off.

He stops waving when she’s out of sight and smiles to Natsu. “Get your stuff; let’s go say hi to Grandpa, ok?” He holds his hand out for her and she takes it eagerly, swinging her bucket full of sand molds and other toys as they make their way to the house.

~

Their grandfather is quite a relaxed man. He greets them with a quiet laugh, welcomes them into his home, and just as quickly urges them to go out and play, saying he’ll call them back when dinner’s ready.

Natsu and Hinata make their way outside, Natsu jumping high and twirling around, as she plops down into the sand near he shore and begins to stack sand into the bucket. Hinata helps her of course, and soon they’re surrounded by a giant sand castle with a moat, and then they’ve migrated to the water to float around, and by sunset they lie on the beach, listening to the waves crash against the shore, and their grandfather calls them in for the night.

Hinata decides that night as he lies in bed, that _yeah, this summer will be fun if every day is like this._ He falls asleep to the sound of calm waves splashing at the shore.

~

 

He's up bright and early the next morning, earlier than anybody else in the house. He goes to wake Natsu up, only to see she’s sleeping like the dead and he’d rather not disrupt her beauty sleep if she was truly tired—last time he tried, she was only angry at him for not leaving her alone. “I guess I’ll let her sleep in a little longer,” Hinata mumbles, deciding to keep himself occupied with something else in the meantime.

His grandfather isn’t awake yet either and he’s not really hungry yet, so breakfast could wait for a while too.  
_In the meantime,_ he thinks, _I’ll explore a bit._ He opens the back door onto the porch that leads down to the beach.

It can’t be past 9am when he already finds himself bored of walking around all alone on the beach, and the sun is only getting higher in the sky and starting to make him feel overheated. He quickly goes inside, and after finding nobody else awake yet (still!), retrieves his swimsuit and goggles for a quick swim in the ocean.

He was going to find a pretty stone to surprise Natsu, he decides, after testing the chilly morning water and dunking under only to find so much life beneath the waters—soft sand, little crevices around every stone, and small, colorful fish swimming beneath his fingers.  
_Maybe I’ll even find her a nice seashell,_ he thinks, encouraging him to get used to the icy water faster. He makes his way deeper into the bright blue waters, keeping close to the sandy ocean floor.

He was a good swimmer. He wasn’t on a swim team or anything, wasn't _that_ good, but he could hold his breath for a fairly long amount of time and could beat his friends in any diving competition they had between each other. He had enough energy to make the cut for any sport team, probably. Just preferred volleyball to all of them.

When he surfaces to get air, he realizes just how far out he had swam away from shore. _I probably shouldn’t go any deeper without anybody around_ it occurs to him, but quickly pushes the thought aside as he dives back into the chilly waters. He wouldn’t be out for much longer, anyway, and He wanted to surprise his sister with something cool when she woke up! At least, that’s how Hinata justifies swimming out into slightly concerning depths of water in his head.

He skims the bottom again, noticing the small clusters of colorful fish as they sail through the waters, around and behind coral and seaweed. And that’s when he sees it—a glimmer at the corner of his eye. It’s a small little shell, probably just under the size of his palm—but it’s pink, and evenly shaped. He goes to grasp at it, the white sand puffing into a cloud around his hand as he pulls the shell back, and goes to swim up again—

And then he freezes.

Breath leaves him before he can make it to the surface, being pulled out of his lungs into bubbles that float away, and he flounders with wide eyes as he tries to understand what he’s seeing.

He’s not looking at a mirror, but there’s someone watching him with a shocked expression, much like himself. Only this person isn’t exactly a person, they have a tail. A long, fish-like tail with reflective cerulean blue scales that start at their hips and cover all the way to their long tail fins. Then he sees it’s hands. It’s _claws._

Remembering he needs air after the moment passes, he turns sharply away from whatever it was to surface at a different area, far away from the creature. Even when he reaches above the waters, he has no time to stop. That thing was in there with him, and he needed to go. _Fast._

He doesn’t swim as much as he _scrambles_ toward land, flailing through the water in a panic and graceless fashion until he feels the sturdy ground beneath him, then literally throws himself out of the water, looking back at the waves to see if the thing has come after him.

It hasn’t. And the water is just as serene as it was when he got in, the only sign of movement being the roll of the tide at his feet. 

Was it all just his imagination? _Nah,_ he thinks. _I wasn’t underwater that long, there’s no way—_

He almost pounces out of his skin when he hears his sister call “ _Shouyou?”_ in a concerned voice behind him. For his sister’s sake, he pulls himself together quickly and stands up, brushing sand off his thighs and grins at her. “What’s up, Natsu?” 

“Are you ok?” she asks, grabbing his hand. He hopes he isn’t shaking.

“I’m alright,” he covers cheerily.

“Grandpa’s making breakfast, he told me to go find you before we can eat.”

“Ah—tell him I’ll be there in a minute.” He says.

Natsu raises an eyebrow, obviously catching on that things weren’t alright, and clutches his hand tighter. “Is something wrong?” she asks, thoughtful.

Even for a little kid, she was pretty good at reading people. “Yeah,” he half-laughs. “I saw a huge fish near the shore, it kind of spooked me! But I think it’s alright now. For today though, let’s not play in the water, ok?”

Natsu laughs at him for ‘being scared of a little fish’ and he just agrees with a smile. “I’m super terrified Natsu, protect your older brother, will you?” she nods her head solemnly with a determined face, and Hinata leads them inside the house for breakfast.

~

 _This was not how it was supposed to go,_ Kageyama thought in a panic.

There were never humans in the water on that beach. Never. The only person who appeared to live there didn’t even swim at all, the farthest the old man had gone was the shore! Kageyama flicks his tail in annoyance, propelling himself faster to home.

If it wasn’t bad enough that he got caught, its that he let the human who got sight of him escape. Which was like, the first rule in swimming in shallow waters.

He didn’t know why but he just… froze when seeing that human. He’d only seen them from afar, them and their dangerous machinery to haul fish from the waters, their speedy metal monsters that carried them across the water in a flash, their rods with hooks to catch things like him. 

Humans were dangerous. They’ve always been destructive, and they always would be. So it was never good if you were seen by one.

Daichi is going to be pissed at me. He thinks, wincing. They worked so hard to build a safe place to live for the pod under the waters, and it was almost perfect. Now they might have to move again because of Kageyama’s mistake.

 _I won’t let that happen._ He's more hopeful if anything.

When he finds Daichi, sitting in one of the big underwater coves they found and talking to another mermaid—Shimizu, he recognizes. He waits off to the side until they finish talking, trying to catch his breath, hoping he doesn’t look too alarmed.

Daichi stops Shimizu from talking and turns to Kageyama, looking concerned. “Are you alright, Kageyama? You look a little pale.” 

Well. So much for trying to look calmer. 

Kageyama keeps quiet, trying to string words together in a correct sentence, but there was no way he could phrase it and still make it out alive.

Daichi sees his hesitance to talk, and dismisses Shimizu, telling her he’ll catch up with her later, and beckons Kageyama closer.

Kageyama feels his mouth go dry, even with all the water filling his lungs. Daichi waits patiently for him to speak, the concern still in his eyes as he looks Kageyama over, searching him for injury it seemed.

“I got caught.”

It’s not what he wants to say, (he didn’t have anything planned, but he hoped it would come out more elegantly than that) and the words seem to freeze the water around them, silencing the already empty clearing. After Daichi seems to register what he says and realises what he’s implied, his eyes turn sharp as he turns his head to look for others nearby, and not finding anyone—leans in again, whispering softly. “You _what?_ ”

Kageyama can’t look in Daichi’s eyes. “Got caught.” 

The words come out silent, but it’s all he can manage. He can feel Daichi’s glare piercing the top of his head, the unspoken “You fucked up” he knows Daichi would never say ringing in his ears on repeat. He clenches his fists at his sides.

“Did you tell anyone else about this yet?” he hears Daichi say, tone far too calm. Kageyama doesn’t want to meet his eyes, but tries anyway.

“No sir,” he mumbles, feeling just as choked up seeing Daichi’s stern expression. “It was at that beach—the one where the old man lives. Someone new was swimming in the water—I don’t know who he was, but he definitely saw me when he was making my usual round there.” He stutters out, his words coming back full speed. 

“How could you let that happen, Kageyama? You always have to be aware of your surroundings! Always!” Daichi almost shouts.

“I didn’t think there would be anyone there! I was hunting and then—and then he was just there, swimming below me and looking at seashells or sand or _something_ and then he looked up to me and—“ 

“It doesn’t matter if there was never anyone there before! You have to keep checking if the coast is clear, you can’t just assume things when you swim in the shallows!”

Kageyama feels his skin burn with shame. He’s angry, scared, and a little afraid and he knows he deserves Daichi’s lecturing right now, but he just can’t stop himself from talking back. “I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to gather some fish and I thought it was fine. He was quiet, he wasn’t splashing around or anything, and how was I supposed to know? I’m so used to being able to swim there—the old man _never_ goes for a dip, much less in the morning of all times, I was certain the coast was clear!” 

He knows he’s in the wrong. He knows he messed up, and he didn’t know how to fix it. he was proving Daichi’s point—he wasn’t being careful enough. He had taken it easy because he thought he was safe there. He should've realized there is no real safe place in the water when they share their space with those humans, but he couldn’t help lashing out. 

“Will I be kicked out?” he asks. He doesn’t want to leave, it’s the only family he really has. But he’ll do it if it could help the others in some way.

Kageyama stops rambling when he feels a pat on his head. He chances looking up again, feeling small still after hearing Daichi’s disciplining voice. Daichi isn’t smiling—but he doesn’t look as frustrated as kageyama thought he would be. He looks concerned still, and a little frightful, but calm now.

“We aren’t going to kick you out,” he says, firm. “Next time, just be more careful, ok? A lot more careful. What if it had been a hunter of some sort?”

“Then I would be dead already,” he says, frowning “So what do we do now?”

Daichi just sighs loudly, running a hand through his short hair. 

“Some mermaids believe that we could all live together in peace and it would work out fine, but things don’t always go as plan. Some have been caught before—killed even, just _because._ A lot of us are wary of them, but others have trusted them before. So you won’t be in trouble for simply being seen. A lot of humans would pass you off as a hallucination and leave it at that, really.” Daichi says, waving his hand to him.

“Although there's some persistent minds out there, people who have caught sight of us only once and dedicated their short lives to unveiling our species to the world, but most of them are seen as dreamers if anything.”

Kageyama nods, taking it all in. “So you’re saying…?” 

Daichi purses his lips. “It’s not spectacular that this happened or anything, but just avoid going to the Shallows for the time being, ok?”

The somewhat hopeful expression on Kageyama’s face drops immediately. He fidgets nervously, before opening his mouth to speak. But Daichi cuts him off before he can get a word out.

“Kageyama.” Daichi warns.

Kageyama nods, feeling deflated. “I won’t go back.” He chews out.

Daichi nods, swimming into the seaweed behind Kageyama—patting him on the shoulder as he passes him by. 

“Thank you.” 

~

“Natsu _Why_ are we still up here.” Hinata moans, pushing yet another tree branch out of his eyes, which is immediately replaced by more tree in his face because they were currently wandering through the forest surrounding the beach.

“We’re adventuring!” Natsu cheers, galloping on through the woods.

Hinata only groans in response to the sea of green in his face. _Of course its fun for her,_ he snorts. _All the branches are my height or taller, so she doesn’t have to run into anything._

He follows her either way, easily tracking her by the loud humming she was doing. The forest was almost quiet, save for the never ending cicada screeches and the cricket noises that would occasionally start up. The forest was shaded by the thick overgrown trees, leaving only a small amount of patchy light to filter in-between. The tree trunks were dipped in moss, as was most of the forest floor. It was peaceful. And very, very green in all directions.

“How far do you want to go, Natsu?” he asks, pushing what feels like the hundredth tree branch out of his face.

“I want to find a cave! Or a clearing!” she cheers.

 _I hope we absolutely do not hope we find a cave,_ he thinks. “What if there was a big, scary dragon in the cave?”

“We’ll slay it!” she yells.

Hinata shudders. _Scary…_ “Natsu, grandpa has probably made dinner by now shouldn’t we start to head back soon?”

“When we find the dragon’s lair!” she cheers, bouncing ahead in front of him.

_Well, it was worth a shot._

He honestly didn’t want to go much further, still a little on edge from his encounter earlier. No matter how much he thinks he was just seeing things, it just felt too real to be an illusion. At this point, he wouldn’t doubt the existence of dragons either, and he didn’t want his sister to wander off too far, in fear of what else might be in the area. Not to mention, he really didn't appeal to the idea of getting lost and having their grandfather set out to look for them because they wandered too far out and didn't use a trail of some sorts to find their way back.

He sighs. Of course, he couldn’t tell her any of this, about the _mermaid,_ or whatever it could've been. She would probably be delighted and try to search for the creature he saw, and honestly he just wanted to stay cooped up in his grandfathers house for a few days and try to forget everything that happened.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by his sister’s started gasp. “Natsu?!” he calls, running through the thicket of trees to where she was standing.

Anything he was about to say is cut off when he looks at where Natsu was watching.

 _“Cool.”_ She says for him, whispering in total awe.

In front of them was a small, secluded area of beach surrounded by trees and right under the cliff side. There were small tide pools everywhere, and the centerpiece of it all being a giant rock cave formed by the base of the cliff, water from the tide pools flowing under and through it. It wasn’t large, but It kept the shallow water in the shade, and it

“Looks like we found a cave just like you wanted, Natsu.” Hinata murmurs breathlessly. 

It was amazing, and momentarily makes him forget of how terrified he was from what he saw earlier. He doesn’t want Natsu around the water for too long, and they should be home for dinner soon…

“Hey Natsu, Let’s come back tomorrow.”

Natsu groans in protest. “What? Why?” 

“Because its late for one,” He tangles his hand through her curly hair and messes it up. “And two, dinner is probably made. We wouldn’t want to worry grandpa, would we?” 

She whines and pulls his hands out of her unruly hair. “I guess.” She mutters.

He pats her back and ushers her toward the forest opening where they came from. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back bright and early tomorrow! Then we can explore this place all you want!” 

She mumbles something too quiet for him to hear, probably protests to leaving, and he pats her back reassuringly.

He suddenly gets an idea, and starts running.

“Race you back home, slow poke!”

“Wh—no fair! You cheated!” she yells, chasing after him.  
He laughs back at her, but doesn’t slow down, ducking under trees as he goes.

~

That night he doesn’t sleep. Every time he tries, he can see it. He can hear it. An eerie song he swears he never heard, but it’s burnt into his brain like lullabies a mother would sing to their child. Chilling dark blue eyes, reflective but otherwise just as black as the depths of the sea. Sharp, sharp claws. Not to forget the long, silvery fish tail of course. He thinks he hears it splashing through the water every time the wind hits the window wrong, and although he’s probably just imagining it, he thinks the thing might be haunting him.

He might’ve just hit his head too hard on something, and maybe it was all just hallucinations. a mistake of what he saw—surely he was just mistaking it for something else—and these thoughts and images and songs buried in his brain, keeping him awake? He was just scaring himself. It wasn’t real.  
He’d like to belive that, But he knew what he saw. He’d pinched his arm until it bled, and laughed it off when Natsu asked, saying he got cut on a jagged rock. He could remember it all—blurry water or not—details of the guys’ scales, the pale hue (almost translucent) hue of his skin, even the look on his face when he saw Hinata. Everything.

He didn’t believe he could have made any of that up with his own mind, even if he tried.

Kicking the covers off his legs, he sits up. It would be pointless to lie in bed, he wasn’t getting any sleep like this either way.

Quietly he tiptoes across the room, Grabbing his jacket and tries to be mindful of his sister still sleeping in the small bed that lied beside his. He opens the door as quiet as possible, but the quiet creaking of the hinges makes him look up to check his sister. Hinata waits until he can hear the soft snoring from her bed, then closes the door silently behind him.

When he’s made it across the kitchen and out the front door, he realizes he didn’t have much of of a plan, but now he does have a lot of sand around his feet.

Well. He knows what he wants to do, but he just hopes he doesn’t chicken out at this point. He has to see for himself if this thing is real, else it might haunt him for the rest of his life. He needs to find It again, know if there really was mermaids in these waters.

He walks slowly through the white sand; there's no rush, and Although he was usually pretty hyper about exploring new places, he felt a little more nervous doing it alone and at night.

Mermaids probably didn’t want to be found, he assumed. They probably didn’t want to be seen at all, not to mention twice by the same person. He didn’t know if the mermaid from his encounter was real, but if it was—he wanted to know what it wanted from him.

As if on autopilot, his feet bring him back to the spot Natsu and he found earlier. It was silent, the waves not coming in as loud here, but rather flowing soundlessly into the tide pools. It was also a lot creepier at night. He tries to repress a shiver, crossing his arms at his chest.

The forest dipped down into the tide pool area, like a small hill. It wasn’t too steep, and Hinata was sure he could run up it in an emergency. Besides, he really wanted to get a closer look at the water. (Hopefully Natsu wouldn’t be too mad at him for exploring the are first)

He slides down the small hill, crouching at the edge of one of the small outer tide pools. There wasn’t much to see in the dark, but the water was a little deeper than he initially thought, a few minnows darting around in the single pool.

He suddenly feels like he’s being watched, and ice suddenly chills his spine. Was It here? He risks looking up, scanning the area. It was still serene and undisturbed, moon up high and nothing across the waters in sight—

And then he sees it.

Hinata doesn’t realize he’s screamed until his voice cracks, his throat hoarse.

It was _there._ Right in front of him, maybe a few meters away—head held above the rocks by those claws, and his eyes unpredictable and dark. It was almost like something out of a horror movie. He didn’t even hear the thing, how long had it been simply _watching_ him?

Snapping abruptly out of his thoughts, he scurries up the hill on his hands and knees, practically clawing at the earth. That thing could grab him at this distance, right? He prayed silently as his nails chewed up the dirt and hauled himself up, hoping the thing couldn't reach his leg,

“ _Ouch._ Why’d you scream, idiot?” A voice calls behind him, and he feels a slight pain on his leg. He looks back just in time to see a small stone tumble down the hill.

Had the thing… thrown a rock at him?

After a moment, he takes the risk and peeks over his shoulder, legs still not functioning well enough for him to turn around.

There, on one of the large rocks lining the tide pools—was a pissed off looking mermaid, scowling and rubbing at his ear.

 _“What?”_ he manages to choke out.

“I asked why you screamed!” 

“You scared me!” 

“How? I didn’t even do anything!”

Hinata blinks, but the thing doesn’t go away. _Was This was real? He was arguing with a mermaid right now._

“You didn’t have to do anything, your face is scary!” 

The others’ face scrunches up at that, proving his point further.

“My face isn't _scary_ , Do you want me to drown you?”

The redhead tenses up, raising his fists. 

“You wanna fight?!” he all but screams.

The mermans’ lips curled into a snarl. “ _No_ —just. What did you come here for?”

“Me?” Hinata asks, a little astounded. “What about you? Why are you here? I was just walking and suddenly you were in the water just _staring_ at me!”

The creature goes through a lot of facial expressions, all of them looks of annoyance—before he sighs and slouches down, hand holding his forehead in exasperation.

“What kind of idiot are you? I was here first, you were sneaking up on me and I hid!”

Hinata tilts his head at that. “I didn’t even know you were there though, so I didn’t ‘sneak up’ on you, really...”

“Well, you scared me just as much as I scared you apparently...” The guy grumbles out.

This was insane. Completely insane. He was talking to a mermaid. Actually Bickering with a mythical creature. He glances over at the guy, taking in every detail. 

He had had short, inky black hair and pale skin, like he’d remembered. But what he didn’t get a chance to see the last time was the small clusters and stray scales littering the sides of his cheeks and neck. His nails were longer than Hinata had remembered, too. His tail was long, a pale silvery blue, with large fins fanning out at the ends, thin and long. He was pretty, but also vaguely terrifying in appearance. Although Hinata was sure the guy himself wasn’t actually harmful. Yet.

“Can I ask you something?” He whispers, still a little breathless at the merperson.

“No.”

“Do you have a name?”

“You meet a mermaid and that’s the first thing you want to know?” He snaps.

Well. It isn’t the only thing he wants to know. It’s one of the million questions dancing on the tip of his tongue, but it’s the one that tumbles out in awe and happened to be voiced first.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He shrugs.

“Why would I tell someone my name who hasn’t even shared their own?” the guy spits out. Hinata thinks he can hear a mumbled _‘no manners whatsoever’_ from the guys’ lips, but he pretends he didn’t hear it and replies.

“Hinata Shouyou is my name!” he smiles at the creature, who looks away quickly after meeting his eyes. Was he…embarrassed? or shy? He feels his smile grow a teensy wider.

It’s silent for another moment, and then:

“Kageyama.”

“Kageyama…?”

“Tobio.” 

_Kageyama Tobio._

“So you do have a name!”

“Why wouldn’t I have one?!” 

He shrugs. “How was I supposed to know.? I didn’t even think mermaids were real. For all I know you could’ve spoken in sign language, or couldn’t communicated at all!” He was still in honest shock that he could speak Japanese, even.

Kageyama rolls his eyes, and shakes his head. “Look, we don’t—“

And like that, they’re cut off by a call in the distance, and a light shining through the trees. 

_Flashlights._

Kageyama quickly slides off the rock into the water, but Hinata calls him before he can go.

“Meet me here tomorrow, ok? Right at this time!” _please don’t leave yet._

Kageyama doesn’t acknowledge him, but stares for a second longer, before diving head first out of a tide pool into the ocean, making a big splash as his tail fin hits the water surface.

Hinata runs up the hill, almost tripping in the process. Its only a minute before he finds his grandfather at the edge of the forest, and he practically shakes Hinata by the shoulders before he hugs him tight. 

“Where were you? Natsu woke up after hearing a noise, and told me you weren’t in bed, and we were so worried!” 

It isn’t a yell, but its stern, and he feels the guilt go through him in waves, and he feels terrible for leaving in the first place. He cant make eye contact with his grandfather—who's holding him by the shoulders again, searching his face for an answer. Hinata looks at the ground, instead.

“I—I’m sorry I just—wanted to go for a walk. I couldn’t sleep and wanted some fresh air.” He stumbles out.

“What was the noise Natsu heard, then? She said it sounded like a scream.”

He feels his cheeks warm over. Not only did he bust Kageyama’s ears with his voice, but woke up everything in a mile radius, as well.

“It was. It was a scream—I uhh—tripped down a hill over there.” He stutters. He meets his grandfather's gaze again, the sincerity coming through his voice. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn't mean to worry you.”

It's silent for a moment, but then his grandfather sighs out in relief, pulling him in again for another hug. 

“It’s okay, just tell someone next time you go for a midnight stroll, alright?” He laughs, patting Hinata's back lightly as he held him close. Hinata can still feel the word 'sorry' on his tongue, and nods into his grandfather's shoulder. he definitely won't let this happen again.

“Alright.” He whispers, still a bit breathless from the nights’ events. 

The name _Kageyama Tobio_ is still ringing fresh in his mind, and excitement rushes through him. _tomorrow_ he thinks. _Tomorrow, I'll see you again_


	2. Flowers and Seashells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, here's the second chapter! Hope you enjoy :)

When the next morning comes, Hinata finds that he’s restless, excited for the day to end and the moon to come out. From the minute he wakes up, he’s thinking _“night can’t come fast enough.”_

His family obviously sees it too, because his grandfather asks, “What’s got you so excited?” at the breakfast table with a hearty chuckle and a grin. Hinata only then notices then that that he’s been tapping his feet at the chair since he sat down.

“I’m sorry,” He laughs, and stops tapping as his Grandfather hands him a plate of eggs and toast. He hands Natsu the same thing, and gets his own food and sits down after, giving Hinata a glace over. He smiles in a knowing kind of way. “It’s perfectly alright, I’m just glad to see you in a good mood. Is this what a little fresh air will do to you?” He’s referring to last night, Hinata knows, and he tenses up while waiting for the onslaught of questions about what he was doing last night.

“Don’t look so worried, Shouyou, I already said it was fine. Just make sure to at least leave a note before you leave if you do it again.” He waves his hand around, and Hinata feels himself relax.

He nods. _A note. I can do that._ “Alright.”

He notices then that Natsu is pouting beside him. He pokes her shoulder.

“What is it?”

Crossing her arms tightly, cheeks puffed, she pouts. “Since you did exploring without me last night, you owe me.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah! We have to do whatever I want today!” 

“That’s fine,” he hums. He’s not afraid to spend the day swimming—he already met the creature he originally feared, and learned that that not only was he harmless mermaid (the claws seemed mostly for show it seemed, or in the least, not for hunting _him_ ) but he was awkward at worst, and Hinata was confident that Him and his sister were safe.

He was excited to see Kageyama again, and didn’t possibly know what he could ask first next time. _What was his favourite food? Were there others like him? How old was he? What did a mermaid do for entertainment? Did they even have any hobbies?_ When he saw him, he was sure to find out _something_ new about the guy.

It would be pointless to over think it, so he just enjoys his breakfast for now, digging into his eggs after a quick “thank you for the meal”. He’ll see Kageyama later—He may not have replied last night, but the look in his eyes was a curious one. It mirrored his own, he was sure. Hinata could only hope that curiosity was enough to make the mermaid come back to see him once again.

It’s hours later they’d spent the whole day looking at the tide pools they found the day before, and Natsu had collected at least a hundred snails in her giant toy bucket.

Natsu scolded him several times for spacing off, and not listening to what she was saying, but he could only apologize. He couldn’t help it! It was hard to stay focused when you Were distracted by a previously thought mythical creature. He says sorry by helping her find more snails, because certainly the bucket overflowing with them wasn’t enough—but it made her happy, so it was alright.

When the sun is setting and They’re both almost crawling back home, their grandfather surprises them by already having curry rice made, hot and ready to be eaten. They eat quickly, and before either of them can offer to help clean up, he shoos them off to bed. “You look like you need it,” he says.

The house dies down and becomes silent soon enough, because when Hinata and Natsu have gone to bed and all was cleaned up, their grandfather probably didn’t have too much to do. The last light flickers off, and the house is dark. The faint light from the moon shines through his windows, silver light pooling on his bedsheets.

Hinata waits till Natsu it snoring—that’s when Hinata grabs his cell phone, flashing the dim light under the covers and jots down “out for some air, be back soon” on a green sticky note from his backpack. 

It’s slightly disappointing when he arrives there first. He tells himself _”He’ll come soon.”_ But only five minutes have passed and he already feels his shoulders slump the tiniest bit, as he leans back against the hill, feet dangling just above the water.

He’s just about to doze off, too, completely lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves waves when he feels an icy cold and _slimy_ hand grab at his foot, tugging him towards the water. He lets out a quick squeal, and pulls himself up into a sitting position, jerking his legs close to his body, and out of the mermaids’ grasp. As he pushes his head above the surface, black fair soaked flat to his skull.

“Feet are weird,” Is the first thing Kageyama mumbles, clenching and unclenching his fingers as if to feel the sensation again on his palms. 

“You actually came!” Hinata says, feeling all the doubt in his mind evaporate into thin air as a smile tugs at the sides of his cheeks.

“Yeah,” the other says, sinking back into the water up to his chin as Hinata slides closer, sitting down with his feet dangling knee deep in water. Kageyama stares as he leans back, away from Hinata’s legs. He eyes them curiously, but makes no move to touch them as he sinks a little further away in the water, sliding up onto a smooth rock jutting out.

“Are you the only one?”

Kageyama doesn’t seem to like that question, by the look on his face. He doesn’t meet his eyes, and looks around nervously; like he doesn’t know if he should be answering that question.

Hinata doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable—doesn’t want to make him leave because he’s pestering for answers too much, and is about to tell him he doesn’t have to reply—but Kageyama’s voice cuts in.

“No,” is what he says, scratching at his neck

“Do you have a family?”

“Can you ask something different?” Kageyama answers, gruffer this time. Hinata drops the subject.

“Ah—then what do you usually eat?” 

“What good would come from knowing my eating habits?” Kageyama asks, scowl ever-present on his face as he judged Hinata. _Does this guy ever smile?_

“Cut me some slack,” Hinata Whines. “It’s not like I’ve ever talked to a mermaid before. I just want to know more about you!”

“You’re better off not knowing a thing,” he sighs. “It’d be better for both of us if I just stopped coming. _Also,_ stop with the 'mermaid' stuff, I'm not a girl you know.”

“Come _on_ ,” He groans, ignoring Kageyama. “Can’t you just answer the question? You can ask stuff about me too, you know—I’m sure you’re curious!”

“…Mackerel and Tuna.” He huffs out eventually. Hinata grins. 

“So?” Hinata asks. “What do you want to know?”

There’s a pause, and then: “What’s the city like?”

This surprises him a bit. I guess it is a good question, he think, because Kageyama would probably never be able to see the city the way he is, though he never thought about it. 

“Well it’s big for one—“ 

“No shit,” 

“Let me finish!”

Kageyama growled quietly, but zipped his lips shut, impatiently flicking his tail against the water. _A habit?_ Hinata wonders with a quick laugh.

“I don’t know what to tell you—I don’t actually live in the city. I live in Miyagi, but I have visited my friend Kenma in Tokyo a few times for volleyball matches,” He pauses, kicking his feet through the water as he hums in thought.

“You’ve seen buildings before, right? Well there’s some there like ones you have never seen—super tall, they almost reach the clouds! It’s especially Bright There, too. They have neon Signs and lights on throughout the day and night. Oh! And theres a lot of people…” He rambles on, watching the brightness highlight Kageyama’s eyes with interest. 

He doesn’t know if he explains the city with justice, but he’s sure he’s described it well enough by the time he’s done. Kageyama may be frozen in a permanent poker face, but his eyes were smiling, amazement lingering till the end of his description.

“Can’t you just go to the City, Kageyama?” he quirks his head to the side.

“Does it look like I can go to the city?” he deadpans, and Hinata splashes him with his hand. Did he always have to be so _literal_? 

“I meant,” he avoids Kageyama’s returned splash at him. “Can’t you just grow legs or something? They always show that kind of thing in movies with mermaids, You know. Like magic.”

“They—what? That’s stupid.” Kageyama frowns. “There’s nothing magical about it.”

It takes Hinata a moment to register what he said, and when he does, his jaw drops. “Wait, so you can do that?!” He blurts, eyes almost popping out of his head. “You’re joking, right?” _this guy could actually sprout legs?_

“I don’t know where you got this whole ‘magic’ idea and all,” Kageyama quotes with his fingers. “But we _can_ do it... I _think,_ anyway. I’ve heard about some of us leaving the sea before, but I’ve never known anyone to do it personally. It might just be a myth, I don’t know.” He shrugs, sounding uncertain toward the end.

It’s silent for a moment, the cool breeze bringing goosebumps onto Hinata’s arms. Kageyama just sits on his rock, unfazed by the idea as he swishes his tail around in a tide pool, glimpsing up at him occasionally.

“ _So,_ ” Hinata drags out. “Why don’t you try it?”

“You think I’d know how?” Kageyama flicks more water at Hinata with his tail, and Hinata squeals, but listens so closely he forgets to get his revenge. “Someone told me before that it was possible, but it isn’t something you could go back and forth on.”

“So you wouldn’t be able to change back?” He asks, instead backing away a few feet before Kageyama decides he wants to splash him again.

“Like I said, I don’t know—it’s probably a myth anyway. I imagine you could, but it’s best just to stay in the water, in my opinion.”

Hinata just stares at him and Kageyama makes a _‘tsk’_ noise.

“I’m saying that sirens and mermaids were known to use any tactic to lure men to their deaths a long time ago—so there’s no proof left behind, but it’s _possible_ that they could adapt to land quicker for that purpose.”

Hinata gapes at him, mouth wide in an ‘o’ shape. He's about to ask more, but he backtacks and realized what Kageyama had said. Which confirmed that _yes, mermaids did in fact kill humans._ he feels his eyes widen. 

Kageyama obviously gets why he's paling, because he quickly adds "We don't do that anymore—or at least, nobody I know does." he glances away. "Kill people, that is. That was a long, _long_ time ago."

They both grow quiet after.

So from what Hinata could gather from their whole conversation thus far—there were other mermaids, but Kageyama didn’t seem too keen on over sharing. He liked Mackerel and Tuna, and he could _possibly-maybe_ transform into a human, and it would possibly-maybe be a _permanent_ choice. That, and he preferred the water to land. And that Kageyama wouldn't kill him. probably. 

“Is there some kind of underwater town? What’s your home like?” He’s wants to know more, and he can’t seem to hold the questions down. He’s talking to a mermaid, who _wouldn’t_ be asking as much as they could think of? Unfortunately though, he never seemed to have a filter when it came to stuff like that. Kageyama looks a little nervous whenever he brings up personal questions like this.

“You’re so…nosy. Are all humans like this? There’s no ‘underwater town’. We swim in pods, with few to a dozen others. For most of us, there’s not a specific ‘home’ because a majority travel to new spots after choosing a mate. Or when the seasons change. There doesn’t have to be a reason, sometimes.” Kageyama huffs, curling his silvery-blue tail up onto the rock. “And where I live is none of your business.”

“So you might be leaving soon?” Shouyou frowns, heart plummeting down towards his stomach. _Just how long can I spend with Kageyama? Would he leave soon? Will I never see him again?_ he frowns at the other, suddenly feeling glum.

“…I probably will be.” Kageyama says with a nod, and Hinata only fells his face scrunch up all the wrong ways into a frown further.  
_Would we only have this summer to see each other, or would it be even less time?_ He pulls his still-somewhat-wet knees to his chest, shoulders slumped and chewing on his lip.

“I’m not leaving yet though, dumbass, stop making that face.”

“Is Dumbass the only Insult you know?” Hinata attempts smiling, frown melting into a grin. He laughs and dodges another swat from Kageyama’s incoming tailfin aimed at his legs.

The sky is still dark, but the atmosphere feels thicker around them, and even as open as Hinata is, he doesn’t know what to say anymore. He’s a little bummed, and decides he’s tired. He dusts his knees off as he stands up. Kageyama’s eyes follow him as he does so. 

“I should probably get going.” Hinata looks at his shirt (which is now covered in splatters of water) instead of Kageyama. And with a quiet, timid voice adds, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

It takes a moment, but eventually Kageyama grunts out a quick “yeah.”

Hinata’s almost turned around when Kageyama’s voice calls him back with a surprisingly loud _“Wait!”_ And Hinata stops in his tracks to stare back at Kageyama from the foot of the hill.

“This has been on my mind for a while, but—“ Kageyama’s eyes narrow. “What were you doing in the water _that_ day, anyway?”

Hinata Blinks. “You mean the day I spotted you underwater?”

“What other day would I be talking about?”

Hinata laughs. “What did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know, That’s why I asked!” Kageyama retorts, rolling his eyes impatiently.

“Did you think I intentionally was looking for you, or something?” Hinata laughs, seeing Kageyama go rigid. “I was just looking for seashells—my sister likes them. She wasn’t awake yet, so I went out to look for some pretty ones to surprise her with, and well, you know the rest.”

“ _Oh._ ” Is all he says, and Hinata doesn’t know what to make of that tone he says it in. Instead, he just waves.

“Goodnight, Kageyama. See you tomorrow, right?”

Kageyama nods, and after a moment passes, quietly whispers back “…see you.” And then he’s gone. It’s silent again, and he carries himself back home.

~

 _Shit,_ he thinks, _Shit shit shit shit SHIT._

If daichi found out he met a human not once, but _two_ times now, he would not only have his head, but slice it off dreadfully slow with a scallop shell, then dangle it above the sharks’ cave for breakfast.

He was so _dead._

And promising going to meet him again _tomorrow_? What was he thinking?

 _What was I thinking?_ He wonders seriously, taking the long route back home. If he went anywhere near the others’ places, he would surely be caught by one of them (they were all light sleepers) and he would receive his death sentence even faster, after being questioned for hours on end until he admitted what he did.

 _Why did I lie to him?_ He thinks, guilt seeping into his guts. _And better yet, why do I feel bad about it?_ A human doesn’t matter. So what was the problem? He was only keeping confidential stuff to himself, like the fact there was indeed a pod full of them, and they had made their own homes and a place of living here—or the fact that his pod wasn’t the travelling sort, and they planned to stay here a long time if they were able.

And yet, it made him feel awful when he lied to Hinata’s face. Which he shouldn’t feel. At all. He needed to stay loyal to his own people! But his face when Kageyama said he was leaving…

His mind flashes back to the How Hinata’s mouth fell into a frown, visibly deflating as Kageyama had told him. There was something about the way his eyes which were always joyful and bright, vividly shining like clear amber—watching them dim into pain and sadness pulling at his chest. It just didn’t feel right, and he wanted the feeling to go away.

He’s on the outskirts of the ‘town’ as Hinata would probably call it, and close to his home when he hears the snarky laugh behind him.

He freezes, but as soon as he realizes who that dumb noise belongs to, turns around to glare at the one and only Tsukishima—the one mermaid he could never seem to get along with— _not_ that either of them were trying that hard. 

“What are you doing up?” he asks, trying his hardest to sound somewhat polite. It wasn’t working, and he had to grit his teeth together just to keep from hissing his words out.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, king?” he laughs. _That stupid laugh—_ “What business do you have outside at this hour? Going off on your own again?”

Kageyama balls his fists “Going for a midnight swim, what does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re sneaking around, to me. But you always look like that.”

Kageyama tries not to bristle up at the comment, and carries on smoothly. “I wasn’t sneaking around. There wasn’t a reason for me being up, I just _was._ ” Crossing his arms, he adds, “Couldn’t sleep.” for good measure.

Tsukishima raises an eyebrow at him, but shakes his head. “You truly are an idiot.”

He wants to punch Tsukishima, but it’ll bring even more attention to the scene, and he’d rather just go to bed. He groans once again, ignoring his words. “So what are you doing up, then?” 

“Nothing big, I was just hunting.” Tsukishima shrugs. 

“We all know you can’t see shit, Tsukishima, you can barely hunt in the day.”

Tsukishima’s eyes narrow. “I can still hunt better than you.” 

And then Tsukishima is swimming away, and Kageyama sighs, wishing that didn’t happen. _It’s for the best I just go home,_ he tells himself, hoping its enough to stop from swimming after Tsukishima to give him a piece of his mind.

He swims back to his cave with a slow sway, gladly not bumping into anyone else he knew. He wouldn’t feel as bad being caught here, though, as it was close to his own house anyway, so it would just appear inconspicuous to be there. He spent a long time talking with Hinata, and until now, didn’t notice how heavy his eyes felt, and how needed sleep felt. 

He immediately curls up in his small cavern space as he closes his eyes, and thinks of what he could say to Hinata when he saw him again. 

_I have to make it up somehow…right?_ is his last intelligible thought before sleep claims him.

~

Shouyou is shaken awake bright and early by his sister, and suddenly regrets staying out so late. Well—sort of. 

“Natsu, stop, let me sleep,” he whispers, covering his head from the death rays of light burning into his eyes. “It’s too early for this…” 

It’s silent for a moment, and he feels himself sinking back into a comfortable nap. That is, until Natsu starts jumping on his bed in place of what she was doing before.

“Natsu, stop” He growls quietly, curling in on himself, clutching the sheets over his head like a lifeline. 

“It’s almost ten in the morning, and grandpa said We could go hiking!” She pauses on her jumping practice, only to bounce once more loudly onto the mattress and lands far too close to him—he’s glad she didn’t take his eye out.

“But grandpa said if you don’t wake up in the next ten minutes, we’re leaving without you. So let’s _go_!” she yells, rolling him over.

It takes a few more minutes, but he gives in, and follows her out of the room wiping at his blurry eyes to where their grandfather is clutching a hot cup of coffee in one hand, and Hinata’s scribbly note in the other with a smile on his face. 

“Didn’t get enough sleep last night?” he asks, taking a sip.

“I did.” He says, stretching his arms and slumping heavily into his seat, sleep threatening to overcome him once again.

“You sure?” His grandpa asks, still smiling. “You don’t have to come with us if you’d rather sleep.”

“Nah, It’s ok, I want to.” He yawns. “Just give me a couple of minutes to throw some clothes on.”

His sister laughs. “But you already have your clothes on!” and it takes him a second to register it, but he looks down at himself, and surely enough, he did. _Must’ve been more tired last night then I thought,_ he thinks, as his sisters laugh echoes throughout the room.

They eat breakfast in a hurry, and Hinata takes just over five minutes to get ready, Throwing on a red t-shirt and some colourful board shorts while his grandfather and Natsu wait for him at the door. Natsu yells at him at least twice a minute until he comes to meet them at the door, and it’s probably the only thing keeping him awake. He felt…sluggish. 

He just met Kageyama. Yet, he already felt like he would be so much lonelier if he’d gone away during his stay here, and Hinata could only hope he would see him again. But it was the sea, for crying out loud! And Hinata might be an ok swimmer, but he wasn’t a mermaid, and he didn’t know the seas like the back of his palm like Kageyama did.  
It was a little frustrating, and he felt anxiety boil in his stomach at the thought of Kageyama not coming back. It’s not like he was _required_ to, and if he wanted, could leave any time he wished to. 

As they’re hiking up the trail, Natsu’s laughter brings him out of his quickly descending thoughts as he watches her march on ahead, and crouches at a patch of small yellow and white flowers. 

“These flowers only grow in forest, right?” she asks their grandfather, who nods. “Those are buttercups, and the white ones are called ‘bedstraw’. You’ll only find them grown in places like this, since they’re wildflowers.” He smiles, making the skin crinkle together by his eyes. 

Only grown in the forest, huh? Hinata thinks, watching as Natsu starts a palm-sized bouquet of them, showing them the dandelions she found with just as much joy.

They start to walk along the trail, but Hinata’s eyes drift back to the flowers getting farther behind them with each step.

When they make it back home for lunch, Natsu rushes in through the door, asking her grandfather for a jar to put the flowers in before they wilt. Hinata watches the scene, going to the fridge to get a snack.

“You picked some too, right Shouyou? Do you want a vase as well?” His sister asks, placing her jar on the windowsill, and their grandfather comments how lovely they look there.

Hinata shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good.” he thoughtlessly clenches at the side of his shorts, feeling the weight of the flowers that were stacked up to the pocket brim.

 

He spends the rest of the day with Natsu, teaching her how to serve, spike, and receive. She couldn’t hit the ball back to him in a proper receive, but by the time the sun goes down, she manages to get just one right, and her smile lights up the beach. She cheers as their grandfather calls them in for dinner, and Natsu tells them at dinner that spiking was her favourite thing to do. He highfives her over the table, and they talk about it until it’s time to clean up, and right then they head to bed.

~

The moon is high, and Kageyama doesn’t know how he plans to sneak out this time. It was still early—meaning everyone was up—and he didn’t want to have another run in with Tsukishima, or even worse, Daichi.

He Grabs his things, and makes his way out of his house for the night.

Luck isn’t on his side tonight, and he sees Daichi swim up to him from the corner of his eye when he’s almost made it out of the vicinity, and into the open blue waters. _So close._

“Where are you going, Kageyama? We haven’t seen you much in the last few nights.” He asks. He probably doesn’t mean to, but his voice holds an underlying scolding tone with the concern. Kageyama turns around.

“I was uh—going hunting.” He curses at Tsukishima in the back of his mind for giving him the idea to say that. He also clutches the small pouch in his hand, holds it out of Daichis view.

“At night?” Daichi quirks a brow, arms crossed. “Why don’t you come with Asahi, Kiyoko and I, then? It’d be a lot safer in a group.”

“That’s not—I’m sorry, I just…wanted to go by myself, if that’s ok?”

He fidgets nervously while he waits for Daichi to finish talking so he can go, not meeting his eyes.

Daichi only stares at him calmly, mouth drawn into a thin line. “That’s fine, but you don’t need to worry about joining us if you want to, ok Kageyama? You aren’t alone, and don’t need to do things by yourself anymore.” 

Kageyama clamps down on his tongue, and stops himself when he finds his claws anxiously scratching at his other arm. He wishes Daichi wouldn’t bring _this_ up again. he knows he’s distant, being the newest member of their pod and all—wasn’t fitting in with the rest. He’d work on it, someday soon—but for now he really just wished he could leave this conversation for another time.

“…Yeah, I know.” He whispers.

Daichi clears his throat, and turns to swim back to the others. “Don’t stay out all night, ok? Come back and hang out with us later this time.”

His shoulders slump when he realises he was just given a curfew.

“…Okay,” he answers, and Daichi swims off with a satisfied look. 

While he’s swimming, the implications Daichi was making jumble around in his head. He was constantly inviting him out with them, to be more apart of the group—he knew Kageyama was intentionally excluding himself from others. The gesture of kindness made him a little angry, even though he didn’t _want_ to be angry at Daichi—he was trying really hard for Kageyama’s sake. He was just annoyed at himself, really. He was the one who didn’t seem to fit in.

He was a little glad for the way he’s acted up until now though, it made his swimming off late at night less suspicious this way. It wasn’t the first time he’d went off alone while the others were gathering together, and now it just looked like he was moping by himself somewhere in the depths of the sea instead of secretly meeting with a human.

…he didn’t know how he felt about being seen that way, but he’ll take it, as long as they aren’t suspecting him of anything.

When he swims and bursts through the surface of the water, he sees he’s still a little off from shore, and leisurely paddles his way there.

There was no use swimming fast, since Hinata would get here sooner or later anyway.  
Instead, he just rests on his back in tide pools, floating under the arch of the cliff that formed a cave. 

He’s just getting used to the calm nature sounds around them when Hinata shouts from the hill, sliding down to meet him. 

“I can’t believe you came!” He says, covered up to his knees in dust and grime from the nasty slide he took moments prior. “I almost didn’t think you would show up, actually…” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Kageyama asks, swimming up close to meet Hinata. “I said I would come, didn’t I?” did this guy have no ears?

“You didn’t say that, you said—“ He flattens his messy orange hair with his fingers, putting on the closest thing to a frown he could probably manage, and grunts out a _“see you.”_ , mocking Kageyama from the previous night.

Kageyama feels the heat rise to his cheeks, and the urge to strangle this human makes his fingers twitch. He can’t grab his neck, (his arms aren’t long enough, sadly.) but he grabs one of his hands, and tugs on the boys wrist harshly, shaking him.  
“I do not look _or_ sound like that!” 

Hinata laughs at Kageyama’s mortification, and he feels the heat spread to his neck at this. He lashes his tail in the water and waits until Hinata’s done making fun of him. If he laughed for much longer, he would most _definitely_ drown the boy.

“I’m sorry,” Hinata wipes at the tears in his eye, the farthest thing from sorry, and settles down at the edge of the rock, close enough that Kageyama could see the details in his face, the light dash of freckles dotted along the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to make you upset, I just didn’t expect you to actually be here. I prepared myself for it, too.”

“…Why exactly didn’t you think I was coming?”

“Because you said you were leaving,” Hinata says, an implied ‘duh’ at the end from the tone he was using.

He wants to tell him that he’s not leaving, not now, and hopefully not _ever_. But it feels like he’s telling too much that way, it feels traitorous to his own kind—to the people that accepted him. a mermaid and a human…they shouldn’t become this close in the first place.

“I’m not… leaving yet,” is what he says instead.

Hinata nods. “That’s good. Then we can still see each other a bit more, right?”

“Yeah,” 

“Okay, then it’s fine.” Hinata’s face doesn’t look as happy as it the night before, eyes not glowing with the usual intensity, and Kageyama knows that it’s definitely _not fine_ to him. He nods anyway.

_Ah._

“Hinata, wait here a minute.”

“Okay.”

With the ruckus Hinata made, he hadn’t realized he dropped his pouch somewhere in the tide pool. It’s not like the water was very deep here in the first place, so it only takes him a few seconds to see the tan pouch under the water. He picks it off the sand, and pulls it above to show Hinata.

“What’s that?” Hinata asks, as Kageyama swims back over to him. 

“It’s a pouch, stupid.”

“I know what it is!”

“Then why’d you ask, Dummy?” 

“I meant what’s inside the pouch, you ass!”

Kageyama feels a trace of a smile grace his lips at the small quarrel, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Hinata, as he gasps dramatically and covers his mouth.

“You smiled!” 

“No I didn’t,” he denies, knowing fully well he’s lying about that one.

“You did!”

“I didn’t—just! Ugh.” He gives up, opening the pouch and grabbing the small sea shells, placing them with a little more force then he should have beside Hinata’s knees.

Hinata blinks. “Why’d you bring these?”

“…You said you were looking for seashells for your sister, right?”

“Yeah, but these are…” Hinata pauses, looking down agape at the shells lined up on the rock.

There was a handful of them—all small but interesting (In his opinion, anyway). Some were snail shells, long abandoned with spots or strips, spiky and smooth. Some lightly tinted scallop shells in purples and pinks, or tiny palm sized conch shells in deep and light colors. They were all unique, and it’s not like he’d known what Hinata would want—he just grabbed what he could find.  
Were they bad though? He didn’t know what to make Of Hinata’s expression. Was it awe, or something else? Maybe he had bad taste. No—Hinata probably had bad taste.

“If you don’t like them, I’ll just throw them back—“

“No!” 

He flinches at the shout. Hinata looks awestruck. “These are amazing, where did you find these? I didn’t find anything like this in the water…”

“That’s because you were looking in the shallows,” he takes his hand back, feeling slightly puffed up that Hinata liked them. They weren’t even for him, though, but Hinata’s obviously overjoyed, and it kind of makes him happy, too. That reminds him:

“Do you think your sister will like these?”

“She’ll love them, thanks!” He looked giddy as he scooped them up into his hands, and placed them tenderly into his own pouch—the one he had brought the other day. It was much bigger and sturdier looking than the one Kageyama brought with him, so he’s sure they shells won’t crack if they’re kept in there.

“I actually got something for you too,” Hinata says, digging into his clothing pockets.  
He pulls his hand out to reveal a bunch of…flowers?

“They’re all crumpled.” He says, and frowns.

“Well sorry I couldn’t keep them alive that good,” Hinata mumbles. “They’re still pretty though, right? you can only find these in forests, so I assumed you’ve never seen anything like it.”

Kageyama picks them out of Hinata’s fingers, and tries to ignore how warm his hands were, hopes Hinata didn’t feel the jump in his touch. “I’ve seen flowers before,” he defends. “I just haven’t seen them this close before, or touched them. They don’t exactly grow close to the water.”

“Well, now you have some!” He chirps, smiling bright and radiant as always. Kageyama looks away.

“…Thank you.”

“Your welcome!”

Kageyama puts them away in the tan bag as Hinata drops his feet in the water, right next to Kageyama’s shoulders, and he doesn’t flinch or move away. It surprises him that he doesn’t feel like he needs to anymore.

“So what did you do today?”

“Excuse me?”

“I know you don’t like me asking personal questions, so we could just talk like this instead. How did your day go?”

Kageyama comes up with blank as he tries to remember anything he did other than searching for shells for Hinata, Which he most definitely will not tell him he’s been doing this whole time. 

“Swimming, catching food, the usual.” He says instead.

“Is that what a mermaid usually does on a daily basis?”

“...sometimes.”

He sighs at Kageyama. “That sounds boring. I went hiking today! And after we got back from that, I started teaching my sister how to play volleyball, and we spent most of the day doing that, actually. After that we…” he trails off, counting the events on his fingers.

“What’s volleyball? You mentioned it before when you were talking about the city.”

 _“What’s volleyball?”_ Hinata repeats, eyes widening. “You’ve never seen people play volleyball? Not even on the beaches or anything?”

“I might, but I’m not sure if I have since you won’t tell me what it is,” Kageyama taps his fingers impatiently against the rock, staring at Hinata.

“It’s when someone tosses you a ball, and you’re all gwaah! And boom! And they receive it, like wahh—“

“Make it understandable for me, would you?”

“It’s like the best sport there is!” he cheers. “I’ll bring a volleyball next time I see you, Ok? You can play with me!”

 _I can?_ He thinks, butterflies flying around in his body _That’s the human term for it, right?_

“Ok,” he says, and Hinata Grins, rambling on about volleyball to his hearts content. Kageyama is barely listening by the time he’s done, since most of Hinata’s speech was incomprehensible. He tunes in again his long statement with “You’ll like it, I promise.”

“We’ll see,” He says.

They part ways early that night, after having a short and meaningless conversation and a bit of arguing, which is becoming a usual for them. Hinata waves and wishes Kageyama goodnight, and he feels himself flush a bit when he automatically says it back In equal eagerness. Hinata stares at him, awestruck, before giggling and turning to leave.

_It might not be too bad, being friends with a human._

He wants to slap himself for the thought, and he wouldn’t admit it, but the idea makes him a little happy. To have someone he could meet up, talk to easily… Hinata was _weird,_ but so far being with him was kind of…fun.

Not that he’d admit it. 

It’s weird, considering how different they are. Maybe it would be like this if he tried connecting more with his own kind, too?

 _I’ll give it a shot._ He swims in the direction of the regular hangout, instead of his own house for once. Socializing isn’t his favourite, but maybe Hinata’s open attitude was having a bit of influence on him. just _maybe._

He swims back to the settlement of their people just past the reef, and Daichi looks a little surprised to see him even show up, as he swims through the ring of mermaids perched on various rocks and coral around him.

They try not to act too surprised, but he can feel their eyes on him. He’s a little surprised he showed up, too. It feels a little awkward, and he considers swimming right back to his house for the night to let everybody do their own thing—

Nishinoya suddenly tugs him up by shoving his arms under his, dragging him up by the shoulders and spinning them around with quite the force. He was small, but very strong—and fast. He was probably one of the fastest swimmers in their pod, vibrant yellow tail like a torpedo when he went full speed. Tanaka isn’t far behind, giving him a noogie as he swims up from his other side.

“Hey!” Kageyama grunts in protest, trying to shake them both off. 

“We haven’t seen you in forever, Kageyama! Where’ve you been?” Tanaka asks loudly, swishing his tail in excitement. 

“Probably holing himself up under a rock like a hermit again,” Tsukishima laughs, and Yamaguchi joins in.

“Shush, You two,” Daichi says. And they stop. Tsukishima just smiles at Kageyama. It isn’t friendly, and he thinks that might be worse than straight up laughing at his face.

“Come sit, Kageyama,” Nishinoya says, dragging him by the arm to push him onto a nearby rock, as they sit on one side of him.

Yachi—a small blonde girl who he didn’t know much about—waved shyly from his other side, and smiles at him, a light blush on her cheeks. He didn’t know her that well, since she was almost as quiet as he was, and usually around Kiyoko. He doesn’t attempt a smile back, but instead nods.

The conversation carries on around him, as they all hang out, some feasting on their catches from dinner while others just laughed along with the conversation. Kageyama didn’t know what to do, really. He thought he would stick out like a sore thumb, but He felt invisible—in a good way; like he blended in. Daichi certainly looks pleased from what Kageyama can see too, and how he nods approvingly to him as the others talk amongst each other.

Kageyama grips the pouch of flowers tighter in his hand behind him, trying not to imagine the face Daichi would make if he found out he was out every night meeting with a human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again~  
> I just wanted to say that i know this chapter has a similar flow from the first one, and it won't always be like that! ( i mean how he spends his day w/ natsu, the night comes, goes out to visits kageyama, repeat the next day, etc.)  
> I was trying to create awkward beginnings/getting closer @ the same time, but that's a little bit hard for me so i hope this came out okay? Please tell me what you thought, and thank you for reading~! :D
> 
> I also have a tumblr! (though it's a new blog, so i'm working out the theme & stuff) It's tobioandthediamonds.tumblr.com  
> Feel free 2 stop by and talk to me about volleyball nerds!! (or just to ask when the next chapter's coming lol)


	3. White lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO SOME AMAZING PEOPLE MADE SOME
> 
> [REALLY](http://davestrider123.tumblr.com/post/127369524513/little-doodle-before-bed-for-this-awesome-fic) [AWESOME](http://kelenia.tumblr.com/post/127399658656/im-in-love-with-tobioandthediamonds-s-fanfic-like) [FANART](http://davestrider123.tumblr.com/post/127418758593/screams)
> 
> FOR THIS FIC AND IVE BEEN SCREAMING AND LOOKING AT THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN SINCE I SAW THEM PLEASE LOOK A THESE IM SO HAPPY
> 
> ALSO THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HITS AND KUDOS AD BOOKMARKS AAAA
> 
> ok now u can read  
> HOPE U ENJOY <3

With all the events that took place in last couple days, Hinata hadn’t realised his phone was left totally cold and ignored at the bottom of his suitcase. He wasn’t planning to spend much time on it, anyway, since he was told there wasn’t great service out at his grandfathers’ house, but it completely skipped his mind to even check the device, being so preoccupied with Kageyama. When he _does_ check, he finds several messages starting to stack up. Most were pictures from kouji and Izumi, random selfies of them or their other friends and of places they went. There were silly captions for some, others not. It seemed like they were trying to make him feel better by saying _‘wish you were here’_ with the gesture, and it made Hinata happy. He really did have great friends.

He blinked when he found an unseen message notification from Sugawara, who usually never texted him unless he had something to say regarding club-related matters. He clicked the name and waited for the message to load.

**From: Sugawara (yesterday, 12:35pm)  
>Are you having a good vacation so far? :)**

He opens the keyboard, sending a quick reply.

**To: Sugawara (2:36pm)  
>It’s been going great so far, how’s yours?**

Only after he hits send, he remembers something.

_Didn’t Suga say he had a friend that lived here?_

His fingers hover over the chat keyboard, and he’s about to ask about it, before his sister catches his attention from his other side, laying on her back and holding one of the several seashells he had given her up to the light. 

“Where did you get these, for real? They’re so cool!” 

Hinata smiles at her, and internally thanks Kageyama as Natsu rolls a small seashell around in her fingers, admiring it up close again, total awe in her eyes as she studies the different patterns from different angles.

“I told you, in the ocean. I didn’t see any others like those, though.” He lies, feeling a tiny bit of guilt from the white lie. She smiles, scooping them up from the bed and putting them on the nightstand, bouncing up onto her feet, white sundress flowing around her. She grips Hinata’s arm.

“Can we go look for more, anyway?” She bats her sparkling eyes and pouts her lips, gripping tightly on his arm as she rocks back and forth on her heels. He agrees without a second thought, dropping his phone onto the bed. He’d try his best, at least. He follows her with a slow walk as she half-runs and launches herself out the door, their grandfather waving to them as they go.

~

Kageyama was lying on the smooth, sandy seafloor trying to take an afternoon nap when his stomach grumbled, scaring away the small minnows floating around him. He groans, and sits up, stretching. He didn’t really want to go back home and see anyone, but he wa required to check in before he goes off on his own, as he already knows. Not that he _hadn’t already_ been disobeying every night to see Hinata as it was, but he’d try not to get in too much more trouble if he could. And that meant going back and seeing Daichi. _Hurray._

He wasn’t in a rush though—it was hours till nightfall still, so he took his time pushing through the kelp forest, and wasn’t as impatient getting the thin seaweed knots out of his tail as he would be any other day. He floats on the soft waves, letting them take him home, and skims by the sand to grab a few noticeably interesting seashells on his way—nothing he ever would have done prior to meeting Hinata.

 _Since when did he control my life, anyway?_ Kageyama frowns, swimming past the first few local houses of their pod, and quickly puts the shells in the pouch around his hips before anyone—namely Tsukishima—makes fun of him for collecting them. Only children did that here, unlike with humans it seemed. Tsukishima would mock him for anything he did, really.

He swims past Nishinoya, who darts around him in greeting before waving, swimming away with Asahi, out into the blue, probably to hunt as well, or explore. They seemed close.

He knows when he passes Tsukishima, because that annoying, mocking voice fills his ears, and he feels his face visibly twist up in annoyance.

“Daichi was looking for you, King” he taunts before swimming off with Yamaguchi, who Kageyama hears whispering “Be a little nicer, Tsukki,” before they’re too far out of earshot to catch anything else. Kageyama grumbles a quiet, “I was going to see him anyways,” to himself, as he speeds up his swimming toward Daichi’s cave.

 _What If he knew? What will Daichi do about it?_ His heart raced. He had been careful, right? _right?_ What did Daichi want to talk with him about? 

He tried to take deep breaths full of seawater before Seeing him. How would Daichi have caught him if he did, anyway? Surely he would already be kicked into another ocean if it were the case. 

“You can do this,” He whispers to himself, trying to calm his accerating heartbeat. It’s only when a couple of girls swim by, giggling at him for talking to himself that he pushes the seaweed away to swim in the cave, heat on his face. He knocks on the rock wall before he goes in too far to Alert Daichi he’d arrived.

“Ah, Kageyama, make yourself at home.” he says, beckoning him with his hand toward the small rocky seat in front of himself, as he takes a seat himself. 

Kageyama sits, and waits for it, hands fidgeting with each other as he tried to keep calm. He was thankful he couldn’t break an obvious sweat underwater, or he would be caught for just _looking_ guilty immediately.

“What did you want?” he asks nervously.

“I just wanted to ask…Have you seen that human around, since the first time? Or gone back to that beach at all?” his hands are curled together on his lap, eyes focused on Kageyamas, and he freezes up. He hopes it wasn’t physically obvious he was alarmed by the question, or his repeating thoughts of _that’s it i'm done i've been caught this is over i'm in so much trouble i'm a dead man_ couldn’t be heard by the man sitting across from him.

“Of course not,” he says, taking a deep breath “why would you ask that?”

“I’m sorry—it’s not that I didn’t believe you when you said you wouldn’t go back there—It’s just because you’ve been gone so much lately that I ask.” He smiles, relieved. 

Kageyama feels horrible with every new layer of lies he tells, but readies his tongue to spout more. “I’ve just been around,” he says vaguely. “Hunting a lot, and exploring the area here.”

Daichi frowns, face turning sympathetic. “Kageyama, I know you aren’t used to being here yet and still trying to get along with everyone, but is the reason you’re doing this because—?” he makes a few random had gestures, obviously not wanting to say it—Not like he has to, Kageyama already knew where this conversation was going, and sighs, trying to ignore the look the other is giving him.

“You mean because I was abandoned? That’s why you think I don’t hang around that much?” he asks, voice edging on a sour tone. Daichi flinches at the comment.

He remembered it well—not like something like that would leave him that easily. The people of his old pod might have all been sick of him, he’ll never know. He just remembers exploring one day with them when they were children, and only turning his back for a second when they had all swam off, leaving him in an unfamiliar place to himself, and he never found them.

He’d been like that ever since. Hunting for himself and living on his own, until one day Daichi found him, and practically dragged Kageyama back to his own pod to live with them.  
They were never hostile, even from the beginning—Kageyama was surprised to find them nothing like his old pod, instead welcoming and kindhearted for the most part. Maybe that’s why he stayed away in the first place, really. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but that’s probably the reason he stayed away—He didn’t want them to leave him too.

He sighs again, taking a deep inhale with it. “Sorry,” he whispers. “That’s not the reason I swim off so much on my own—I think I’m just so used to doing things myself that it’s become a habit now. I’ll work on it, I promise.” He’s been trying for a while now. 

Daichi nods his head, sympathetic smile on his face. “It’s ok.”

Kageyama clears his throat. “I actually came here to ask I could go hunting, so could I leave for a bit? I only ran into Tsukishima on the way and he told me to come see you.”

“That’s fine.” Daichi replies, signalling with a wave of his hand that he was excused. “Just bring someone with you, for your own safety.”

He’s about to open his mouth and argue, but Daichi speaks first. “No ‘buts’, just do it.” and He closes his mouth, retreating out of the cave with a grumpy hum of affirmation. 

He refuses to go with Tsukishima or Yamaguchi, and Nishinoya and Asahi were already out and he’s definitely not going to go search for either of them in an entire ocean. Tanaka and his sister were far too loud, and that would probably be his last resort to ask one of them. He doesn’t really _know_ that many people to begin with, so his options were pretty limited as is.

The first person he spots that he somewhat knows happens to be Yachi, and almost by reflex, he grabs her by the arm. She jumps on the spot, before turning around and realizing it was Kageyama who grabbed her. She pales drastically.

Kageyama suddenly wishes he was better at socializing, or had Hinata with him to help him through this. That kid could talk forever if he didn’t stop him, Kageyama’s sure. He doesn’t dare smile at Yachi, but he’s starting to wonder if Hinata was right when he said his face was scary. 

“Can I help you?” she stutters a bit, giving him a nervous, quaky smile.

He lets go of her arm and bows. “Could you go hunting with me?”

“Huh?”

“Hunting. Daichi said I wasn’t allowed to go out alone, so…” _I don’t know anyone else, mind coming with me?_ He doesn’t add.

A look of understanding crosses her features, and she gives him a bright smile. She nods several times, before pointing off toward her house. “Just give me a minute, ok? I’ll be right back.”

And as soon as she’s off, Kageyama waits and blinks in surprise. That was…easier than he thought. _I’m a bit surprised she didn’t bolt off the second she saw it was me though,_ he snorts. It looked like she wanted to for a second. It made him happy. This way—at least he knew the person by name, and it might be a bit less awkward to go with someone his age. 

She’s back before he knows it, Small clam knife held to her hip and ready for hunting. She still looks a bit nervous, but she’s smiling at him anyway. She had tied her hair into a half ponytail on the top of her head, pink seaweed and small starfish holding it in place. It was a style for little kids, really, but it suited her well, oddly enough.

“You ready?”

She nods, and they leave.

~

It’s probably past noon when they take a breather from hunting, and Yachi points at a cluster of smooth boulders just above the water. 

“Do you want to eat?” she suggests.

She’s obviously been watching him hungrily eye the Mackerel he caught earlier and he whispers a quiet “sure” at her suggestion. A break would be fine. If anything, it killed more time.

They’re sheltered by trees on the land around them, and they hoist themselves up onto separate rocks as they eat in silence. Kageyama was practically pasted to the rock, laying down in attempt to absorb the suns warmth emitting from it, while Yachi had been sitting straight on a rock closer to the water, swaying her tail back in forth in it as she picked neatly at her food. Well. As neatly as you could when you were ripping flesh with your teeth and claws, that is.

He’s the first to break the silence, and she jumps again by the sound of his voice.

“Why did you agree to come with me?”

She blinks, looking back at him. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t have…?”

He shakes his head. “ No, I guess not. I just feel bad for taking you away so suddenly. Did you have plans?” He feels a shred of guilt for just assuming she was free, after all. He basically tore her away from anything she was doing just for his own selfish reasons.

She hums. “I was going to go see Kiyoko, but that’s it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She grins at him, dropping the leftover fish bones into the water. “Why? And I see her every other day anyway, it’s fine.” She laughs, lightly, and it reminds him of bells chiming. “You’ve never talked to me before this, anyway, so I’m glad to finally speak with you after all this time.”

“…If you say so.”

They become silent again, and Kageyama finishes his food quickly, as Yachi waits for him. He’s about to tell her he’s ready to go when he hears a familiar voice, and an accompanying giggle getting closer.

“Get down!” Yachi hisses, throwing herself into the ocean. He also gets in the water, but doesn’t dive under like Yachi. He stays above and looks throughout the trees, trying to spot where the movement was.

When he sees Hinata, he’s walking with who he can only assume is his sister, since she practically looks identical to him, only younger and with slightly longer hair. She laughs about something as she skips on ahead of him, a large branch in her hands that she wove around in the air like a wand.

He didn’t even realise Him and Yachi had gotten so close to the beach house, and even though it wasn’t in sight, he should’ve known the area. Of course, everything looked a bit different at night, but he should have been on better guard.

He swims closer to hide behind another large rock jutting out of the water, and watches as the little girl trot closer to the waters, crouching to pick something up and show Hinata with a gleeful call. 

Yachi is back and tugs harshly on his arm, pulling him back outward to the sea. His blood goes cold as he realises what a mistake he made, showing interest in the humans in front of Yachi. She has a look of bewilderment as she pulls him under, and he complies this time, following her lead. They don’t talk for a while, just swimming until they’re in the clear. Yachi lets go of his wrist and stops.

“What was that?” She asks, fear obvious. “You could’ve been killed if he saw you! Did you think those two humans saw us? Do you know?”

He gulps, mostly because he’s not getting enough water to reply properly. What was he supposed to say? _Sorry about that Yachi, but you don’t need to worry, since I know that guy and we’ve been meeting up for a while now so he for sure wouldn’t have hurt us, so everything is fine!_ As if.

“I’m sorry, I panicked.” He goes with, and the look of incredulity he receives tells him it’s a shitty excuse.

“What do you want me to say?” He asks, practically hissing. “I don’t know what came over me, but we’re fine, right?”

Her eyes soften and she sighs, bubbles floating to the surface. “I hope so.” She shakes her head a few times, as if to forget it happened. “I’ll believe you, but be super careful next time, Alright? That was super close.”

It’s quiet for a moment before she addresses her head toward their home, and starts swimming. “…Let’s just go back for the day, ok?”

He swims after her, and they’re silent the rest of the way back.

 ~

Hinata sneaks out at midnight, volleyball in his arms. There was no wind that night, but an owl could be heard hooting in the distance, somewhere. The waves were calm, and He trots through the few inches of cool water on his way to meet Kageyama. 

Kageyama was leisurely floating and looking up at the sky, but he didn’t look as thrilled as he usually was, almost somber expression on his face as he looked up at the sky. Did something happen? 

“I got here first.” Kageyama says suddenly, sitting up.

“It’s not a race!”

Kageyama smirks. “But if it was one, I’d have beaten you twice now.”

Hinata sighs, ignoring him and holding up the volleyball. “I brought the volleyball, did you want to play now?” 

There’s a curious look in his eye as he studies the volleyball in his hands. “How would we go about playing it, anyway?” Kageyama asks, looking down into the water. “I’m kind of stuck here, you know. I can’t get out and do anything.”

He rolls his eyes. “Obviously. Don’t worry, you won’t have to.” He tosses the ball to Kageyama, who stutters before barely catching it, and juggles a bit with it before it’s firmly in his grasp. He laughs as Kageyama glares at him, holding the ball like prey that would escape if he didn’t grip it firmly enough.

“What do I do with this?” He asks, glaring at the object.

Hinata shrugs, and sits down. “Let’s start by just passing it to me, ok? Just do what I just did. Throw it back toward me, but lightly.”

His clutch on the ball loosens, as he tosses it back to Hinata. They do it back and forth for a matter of minutes, and Kageyama gets _most_ of them back to Hinata, but fumbles with some of the ones he’s tossed in return. Eventually, they smooth it out and can pass to each other easily. “How is this supposed to be fun?” Kageyama tosses it back, and Hinata grins.

“Since you’ve never probably held a ball before this, I’m teaching you from step one,” he shrugs, passing the ball back and forth between his own hands. “You can’t play volleyball without knowing how to properly toss it to me.”

“Then teach me what’s next, dumbass.”

“Fine, fine,” Hinata giggles, stepping up and giving the ball back to him from farther away.

“I can’t actually teach you how to play a real game, since we don’t have six people, a net, or a court, sadly.”

“Then why are we doing this?” he huffs, impatient.

“Because,” Hinata starts, smiling mischievously. “You can toss to me, and I can do this!”

On the next toss toward Hinata, he spikes it down to the ground, and Kageyama flinches. 

“What...what was the point of that?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

Hinata’s smile is dazzling as he answers the question. “In a real game, I would have to do it over the next, and if it was in bounds—I’d score a point. If it scored out of bounds or someone blocked it—they would have scored a point.”

“And that’s supposed to be _fun?_ ” his face is scrunched up, like he’s trying to connect the dots in his head.

“It is fun.” Hinata assures, “It would probably make more sense to you if we had enough people here for it. And the net.”

“Or if I had legs,” Kageyama adds, dragging a finger through the sand. 

“Not necessarily,” Hinata shakes his head. “As long as you could toss the ball, you could be a pretty good setter. They have to move, too, but the most important thing is getting the ball to the other players, so you could probably do it if your toss was accurate enough.”

“really?” 

“Yeah!” Hinata smiles, and without warning, throws the ball back to Kageyama. “Let’s just do this for a while, ok? Passing is good practice.”

“Alright.”

He’s surprisingly quick to catch on, Hinata muses, throwing the ball back when it’s tossed back towards his face. They continue passing back and forth, and though He probably thought Hinata wouldn’t be able to tell—he could clearly see the enjoyment Kageyama was having, even though they were only doing this much with each other. _He probably doesn’t have anything like this under the water,_ Hinata thinks.

“So what do you do in your spare time?”

“What?”

“Like—“ Hinata pauses, gathering his thoughts. “You said you were hunting yesterday, but what else do you do? If that’s all that merpeople do, that’s got to be pretty boring, right?”

“That’s not all we do,” Kageyama aims for Hinata’s head again, but he catches it easily, and sticks his tongue out at Kageyama for the obvious attempt at hitting him. “When we’re kids, we do pretty much anything to keep entertained. Collect shells, play with other sea creatures, or Explore new places, stuff like that.” He catches the next ball, which barely lands in his palm. “I don’t know—some of us explore abandoned shipwrecks and scavenge for stuff, some sleep for most of the day, others like building and helping others make their homes.” He shrugs “We do whatever has to be done to survive when we’re older, but for the most part we just do whatever keeps us content, I guess. We can move on and explore different places when we want, too.”

Hinata wants to ask _”Where are your parents in this?”_ but he already knows bringing up family puts Kageyama in a bad mood, and he’s afraid to ask. Some other time, maybe.

“You’re so lucky,” Hinata groans. “We have to go to school, get jobs, and then work for the rest of our life. And travel is expensive, so we can’t just ‘go’ anywhere easy as that.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, and school can be like twelve or thirteen years long. Even longer, if you’re considering university afterwards.”

Kageyama’s brows pinch together as the ball is tossed his way. “What is school?”

“Hell. Especially when you don’t have great grades,” He whines, and when seeing Kageyama’s terrified expression, he laughs and waves his hands. “Not literally! It’s just kind of boring. It’s basically just sitting down and learning new things for hours on end with short breaks in between.”

“That does sound boring,” Kageyama throws the ball back At Hinata.

“I’ve wanted to know for a while anyway,” Hinata passes it back. “But how do you know Japanese if there’s nothing like schools where you come from?”

“You pick it up from hearing sailors and other people talk,” He shrugs. “We do that when you’re young too. Trying to get closer to humans and learn about them… It’s a little risky, but everyone does it, I guess.” _So they do it like tests of courage?_ Hinata wonders, as Kageyama carries on. “What we pick up depends where we travel, really, but I’ve been here all my life so you tune into the language, I guess.” He shrugs. “Though we don’t communicate in Japanese with each other.”

“So do your people often get this close to a human?” Hinata asks, pointing between Kageyama and himself. 

Kageyama purses his lip. “I’m not supposed to, no. They don’t know I’m out here.”

He tilts his head, orange and messy bangs falling into his eyes. “Don’t your friends ever come looking for you?” he asks innocently.

It’s apparently the wrong question to ask, because Kageyama shrinks a bit, becoming silent. “I don’t…really have friends. I’m on my own a lot, so the others don’t usually notice me coming here. Which is for the best, probably.” 

Hinata can feel his face twitch into a frown, placing the ball on the ground as he sits down across from Kageyama. “Don’t say that you don’t have any friends, stupid. We’re friends, right?” 

“I,” Kageyama starts, face blank as he searches Hinata’s face. “I guess so,” he eventually mumbles out, looking away. _He’s probably embarrassed to say it._ Hinata thinks with a winning grin.

“Sound more confident when you say it,” He nudges Kageyama, who slaps his arm away as he sinks to his ears and blows bubbles into the water, refusing to make eye contact.

It takes Hinata a moment, but he sees Kageyama looks oddly happy. He almost snorts at the way Kageyama covered up his embarrassment. _Had he never had anyone to call a friend before?_ He wonders. 

When his phone rings from his backpack, he almost jumps of his skin at the tune.

“what is that,” Kageyama asks, swimming backward from the bag on the ground. His eyes went back and forth from Hinata and it, and Hinata represses the urge to laugh at him once again.

“It’s fine, Kageyama. It’s just my phone.”

“Phone?” he asks, and sniffs once it’s in Hinata’s hands.

“It’s so I can talk to people back home from right here,” He explains, as Kageyama cautiously peers over his shoulder, blinking from the harsh light in his eyes.

“How’s that possible?” Kageyama mumbles to himself, just as Hinata sees the time on his screen. He lets out a sad noise.

“It got late fast,” He throws the phone into the bag, not bothering to check the text yet. “I should probably get going, but I can explain how phones work to you tomorrow, if you want? You can even play some games on it as long as you don’t promise not to drop it in the water, since it’ll break if you do.” 

“alright?” Kageyama almost asks, nodding his head in confusion. He probably didn’t know how he was supposed to play games on a phone, looking at the device weirdly.

“Do you want me to leave the volleyball here? You can practice while I’m gone if you want.” Hinata offers, twirling it in his palms.

He looks like he’s considering it before shaking his head. “No, It’s ok. I can’t take it back with me, and if you leave it here it’ll probably just blow away, or something.”

Hinata puts it in his bag while shrugging. “You could just throw it in a bush, It wouldn’t get that far.” But Kageyama shakes his head at that, too.

“Well,” Hinata zips his bag, feeling bad for leaving when he’d rather just stay. But he can’t end up too tired in the mornings, either, or else his family will start following him at night, or preventing him from going altogether. 

“I’m off then. See you tomorrow, alright?”

“Yeah. Goodnight.” And in a flash, he’s already dunked underwater, nowhere to be seen.

 _No wonder humans haven’t found anything like them yet,_ Hinata thinks, searching the water with his eyes for any sign of movement or color, and coming up with nothing. _They blend in far too easily._

On his way walking back through the forest, he turns on the phone to check the text message he’d almost forgotten the ringing was about, and opened a reply from Suga.

**From: Sugawara (2:36am)  
>My summer has been fine. What’s it like up there? See any cool sights yet?**

Hinata refrains from typing anything like: _’Hi suga, I found a mermaid, so it’s been pretty cool so far.’_ And instead writes About the adventures he’s been having with his sister, and sends a few of his favorite photos of the cave, trails, and the beach to go with it.

He pockets the phone after hitting send, jogs towards home, and literally falls into bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so this was probably my shortest chapter but its still nearly 5k words so thats not TOO bad but i think next updates going to be a lot longer than that lol  
> I hope you like it please tell me what you think in the comments??? ;v; Kudos are also very appreciated if u liked it <33
> 
> In this chapter i briefly mentioned Kageyama's past but ill go more in depth later chapters but hope i wrote that part ok?? i didn't want it to seem too angsty or sudden but i just wanted readers to _know_ what happened to him before this so i can bring it up later and it wont be like S U R PRI SE!!! when he talks about it again IDK
> 
> Also i'm going to make Yachi and Kags good friends o k there will be no kageyama x yachi I JUST WANT THEM TO BE BUDS...
> 
> This might be my last Update for the summer IM NOT SURE but if it is im just going to say that my updates will be slower when im back in school but they probably will still be pretty often so no need 2 worry.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Also come say hi to me on tumblr if u want --> Tobioandthediamonds.tumblr.com


	4. Proximity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting patiently ;^;  
> Here's chapter 4, hope you enjoy!!

**To: Sugawara (12:37pm)  
>By the way, What was your friends’ name who lived here? Just wondering. **

Hinata sent the text and put his phone away, following his impatient sister through the crowded streets as she tugged on his arm.

Earlier that morning, their grandfather had spontaneously decided to take them out shopping in the town over to entertain them. They’d both been all for it, barely finishing their breakfast before they scrambled to get their clothes on in excitement. On their way there, they talked about what they wanted to get upon arriving, but when they actually laid eyes on the place, it was suddenly impossible to decide where to go first. Their grandfather laughed, handing them some money and told them where he’ll be—and to meet him for dinner at the small café he likes around the corner. They thanked him as he left, and looked around for where they want to go first.

That brings them back to where they are now, standing in the middle of a moving crowd, not knowing where to start.

The town had several interesting stores with trinkets and souvenirs, while the streets were littered with people and lined with street vendors on all sides. His sister pulls against his arm, pointing towards some food stands as they walked. Hinata only tugged her along with a laugh.

“We just ate lunch, Natsu! Let’s go shop for other things first, and snack later, ok?”

She pouts, puffing her cheeks out with an exaggerated frown, but it was clear she agreed, as she let herself be directed away from the mouth-watering food court. 

He spends most of the afternoon tailoring to Natsu’s stores of choice. They end up in a lot of toy stores, little kids screaming happily from left to right at all the cool stuff, and Natsu joins them, Pulling her brother along to show him things she likes.  
They leave that store when Natsu picks her favourite toy, a plush cat almost as big as her. And then it’s to the book store, and soon after another toy store.

Hinata doesn’t mind taking her around—he’s having just as much fun as she is. He window shops on their way to each kid store, and Hinata only asks her if they could make a quick stop for him when he comes across a sports’ shop.

He finds the corner of the small shop that’s dedicated to volleyball easily, and takes a look at the gear while his sister curiously stares from the side for only a few minutes before he’s grabbed a new set of kneepads. They were cheaper than they were in Miyagi, and he could do with some new ones, anyway.

When he’s at the till and the cashier is ringing his items through, his eyes are on a small volleyball keychain hanging loosely from a spinning rack on the desk.

It’s charming, small and hanging by a phone strap. It’s a metallic charm, a flat circle embossed and painted in the image of a volleyball. 

His attention snaps back to the cashier when he asks “Will that be all?” in a tired, practiced voice, and Hinata grabs the keychain, placing it on the desk with his new kneepads.

“This too, please.”

~

Just as they both finish at another store of Natsu’s choice, both of their stomachs grumble, one right after the other. Hinata checks the time. It was only 4pm, what was the harm in snacking a bit before meeting up with their grandfather?

They head down the isles, and he accompanies Natsu to get a crepe. They walk over to another Vendor half down the street, and Hinata buys three pork buns. _If Natsu asks, It’s because I’m super hungry._ He thinks, as asks for two of them to be wrapped and packs them away for later. He doesn’t know whether the merman will appreciate the gesture, but whether he had a good or bad reaction to human food, it was sure to be interesting.

~

“What is that?” Kageyama asks when he holds it up, sniffs the air cautiously as Hinata pushes it closer to him.

“It’s a pork bun, silly. You can eat meat, right?”

“Of course I can!” Kageyama snatches it out of Hinata’s hand, glaring at the wrapped food while sniffing it from all sides.

Hinata laughs as he watches him, unwrapping the third pork bun he bought that night for himself, and takes a bite as he watches Kageyama struggle.

Kageyama flips it over in his fingers and is about to bite right into the package, paper wrapping and all, before lurching back with a frown full of distaste, and spits out bits of paper to the side. Kageyama only glares at the laughing Hinata.

After he sees how Hinata eats his, he looks back to his own, and unpeels the paper wrapping. When he takes the first bite, Hinata almost laughs again just from the gleeful sparkle Kageyama’s eyes take. He looks up to Hinata.

“Where did you get these?”

“A street vendor in the next town over.”

“They’re good.” He says, taking a much larger bite.

“Right?” Hinata agrees.

It’s not long before he’s finished—especially from taking such huge bites. He licks his fingers clean, then shoves the remaining paper wrap in Hinata’s backpack, not knowing what else to do with it. Hinata doesn’t mind it—he’ll just throw it out later, but he hopes there won’t be grease stains in his backpack.

“Thank you.” Kageyama mumbles, looking away and speaking in a pouty tone, light blush filling his cheeks. It’s clear he’s in a good mood from the present. Hinata replies with a quick, “No problem!” before he’s suddenly up on his feet again, and grabs the volleyball from his bag.

“Want to play?”

Kageyama nods enthusiastically, and they begin tossing to each other and Hinata even manages to teach Kageyama to receive a ball, and they practice to improve at receiving and tossing, too. They keep conversation going in between passes, discussing how each others’ days were as usual. 

It’s short lived though, and they stop when Kageyama suddenly freezes up, face going abnormally pale as he lets the ball fall straight into the water, not bothering to catch it. Hinata knows something’s wrong. He walks right up to the water, reaching out to Kageyama.

“Kageyama? What—“

“Be quiet!” Kageyama hisses in a low voice, and pulls Hinata down to the ground by his wrist.

He’s on his knees, ducked close to the ground where Kageyama tugged him, unmoving. He watches Kageyama, who looks around cautiously. Hinata wants to open his mouth, to ask him “What are you doing?” but Kageyama seemed urgent in the way he shushed him, looking frightful and jumpy. 

He still looked that way, peeking over a tall boulder that stood tall in the water. He scans the ocean, before ducking back behind it, glaring at Hinata while holding a finger to his lips. 

Hinata hears a weird, low sounding clicking noise—maybe a chirp? It’s not really something he could describe, but it’s _loud_ , and it’s repeated a few times, before the silence kicks in again. Kageyama’s tense and pasted stiffly to the back of the rock, not even bothering to make a movement for the longest time. After a while, he sighs, releasing all the tension in the air with only a breath. He wades over to Hinata, who sat up to the fullest again, but looked around just as cautiously.

“What was that?” Hinata whispers, searching Kageyama’s eyes before briefly peeking over the boulders for himself, only to be tugged back down by Kageyama. 

“Don’t look! I dont know if he’s gone yet,” Kageyama growls, holding Hinata’s wrist in place.

 _’He?’_ “Who are you talking about? What was that?”

Kageyama looks a bit hesitant, but sighs in resignation. “One of my kind—he’s kind of the ‘leader’ among us, you could say. If he catches me here, I’m dead meat.”

Hinata’s eyes widen. “So he knows you’re here?”

“No—I don’t think so. If he knew I was here, he probably would have towed me away with him.” He peaks over the boulder for himself, and quickly ducks back behind it. “He was searching for me, I guess. If he got this far out, that means he already searched all my usual spots, I’m guessing.” Kageyama goes quiet at the end, mumbling a few extra curse words with it.

“Oh.” Hinata says, and slouches. So that had been one of his kind? He’d like to ask more—he’d _love_ to ask more, the questions were practically listing themselves off on pages in his mind, but he knew they’d have to wait for a different time—if Kageyama even _felt_ like sharing at that point.

“So does that mean you have to leave?”

“Probably for the best, yeah.”

“Before you go,” Hinata starts, crawling over to his bag and pulling out the volleyball charm he bought earlier. “I also got this for you.”

He hands it to Kageyama, who looks up at Hinata curiously as if asking _‘for me?’_ before holding his palms out for Hinata to drop it in.

“I figured since you can’t actually take volleyball with you underwater, this would suffice.” He feels a bit of warmth heat his face as he carries on, “I also got it so you’d remember me—since you’re leaving soon, right?”

The sparkles in Kageyama’s eyes die down in an instant as he looks sadly at Hinata, and then to the water, not making eye contact. “That was uh—I was lying about that. I’m not leaving.”

“huh?”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to share too much with a human at the time, but I did regret lying to you. I’m not leaving anytime soon.” Kageyama says, and it sounded genuine.

Hinata blinks. “Oh. Alright.”

“What do you mean ‘alright’? I lied to you,” Kageyama mutters. “Why aren’t you angry?”

Hinata thinks it over, but if anything it made him happy. They had more time together, and he wasn’t afraid of Kageyama not showing up one night and knowing he’d moved on to a different place.

He just shakes his head. “It’s not _alright,_ but you told me now, didn’t you? I’m happy.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Shouldn’t you be going right now, though? He’s probably still looking for you.”

“Shit—yeah, sorry. I got to go. Goodnight.” He says, swimming off. Before he tucks his head under the water, he shyly turns his head back towards Hinata. “Thank you for this,” he mumbles, holding up the little volleyball keychain.

And just like that, He’s gone.

Hinata’s smiling all the way home, and flops on the bed. He’s about to go to sleep, when he remembered he texted Suga earlier, and searches his bag until he finds it. 

It has one new text, from Suga. He opens it as he lies back down onto the bed, feeling sleepiness start to kick in. the text was from hours ago, and Hinata feels a little bit bad for not replying sooner.

**From: Sugawara: (1:28pm)  
>Sawamura Daichi is his name, why?**

_Sawamura Daichi, huh?_

**To: Sugawara (2:45am):  
>No reason, really. I was in town earlier and thought I might find that person if I knew their name. I totally forgot about checking my phone tho, sorry. : ( **

He receives a reply only minutes later, and it wakes him up from his almost-sleep.

**From: Sugawara: (2:52am)  
>Oh, I see! That’s ok, I was just wondering why you wanted to know. You probably won’t find him though, He may have moved a while back, and He doesn’t like heavily populated places like towns, anyway. You should be sleeping, though! Goodnight!**

Hinata squints at the message, and sends a quick “Goodnight” back, rolling face first into the pillow. He knew it was about the same time in Miyagi, and Suga should’ve also been sleeping as well, but he doesn’t mention it—just tosses the phone to the side and lands face first back into the sheets. He hugs the pillow close, and is snoring within minutes.

~

Kageyama is hiding. 

Not very well, probably, but he’s trying his hardest not to get caught going back home, going to extreme lengths to avoid being seen by anything. 

He dodges any patch of light when he’s in shallow waters, and swims low against the ground, just barely scraping the top of a few crabs that reach and pinch for his tail, and glaring at nearby fish until they swim out his way.

He’s so close to home—so, _so_ close. He’s practically in the doorway of his home when he hears a throat being cleared behind his back, and turns around unwillingly. Daichi is there, as expected. His arms are crossed, and the way he’s looking at Kageyama is like a scolding father would to a child, probably.

“Where were you?” He asks, not willing to listen to excuses by the sound of it. Kageyama gulps. He searches for an excuse, an alibi, _anything—_ but he’s already used most of his excuses.

“I was exploring farther out.”

“And why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll tell somebody next time—“

“ _Next time?_ Kageyama, do you think I’m stupid?” Daichi asks, calm and collected, but Kageyama is certain he’s only angrier at his words.

“You keep doing this every night—swimming away from the pod and going where nobody else can find you. At first, I believed you, and thought you really were just exploring.” He starts to list off of his fingers. “Then, I thought maybe you were trying to distance yourself, get some fresh air and space away from the others. And I was fine with that, even though I wanted you to get closer to the others. But _now,_ ” He says, growl rolling off his tongue, “Now I _know_ you’re going somewhere—I searched everywhere for you, and nothing! Where are you going, Kageyama? Why are you _lying_ to me?”

Kageyama closes his eyes, hoping it can sound sincere enough when he thinks of what to say. If Daichi knew he was still communicating with a human, he would without question kick him out, or make sure he never swam close to the territory again—he could possibly bring back the human with him, right?

“I’m not _lying,_ I just,” He sighs, “I really was just swimming off. I went too far out this time, got a bit lost, and I’m sorry.” He bows, balling his fists, and holding the small charm in his hand even tighter in his fist. _What a pathetic excuse_

When he looks up to Daichi, he looks sceptical, a little sad, and totally unbelieving. Kageyama’s heart drops. 

“Alright, Kageyama,” He replies tiredly. “You don’t have to tell me—but I hope you’re keeping safe, ok? I don’t want to see you hurt.”

And there it is—the giant, lead cannonball of guilt dropped right into his gut. He feels even _more_ terrible for lying, if it were possible. Daichi was only trying to look out for him, after all.

He nods wordlessly, and Daichi wishes him a goodnight, leaving him to his thoughts.

~

Things start to get a little weird after that.

For the next few days, Yachi seems inseparable from his side. She’s glued to his hip one afternoon, asks to join him for hunting, as she chatters away nervously for most of the time. But it’s not like it stops there. She’s suddenly _everywhere_ —hiding in the seaweed patches the next day he leaves to go for a swim, get some air—she’s suddenly there, asking to go with him.

He doesn’t mind—he likes Yachi, and she’s a preferable hunting partner to anyone else, and she’s easy to get along with. He’s quiet, for the most part, during their second hunting trip in a row. She doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t let the conversation drop. He’s only wondering why she’s there in the first place, when he knows she’d rather be with Kiyoko like usual, and only came with him that first time because he would’ve dragged her with him if she hadn’t accepted.

It’s The trip lasts before nightfall, and by this point, he’s desperately trying to loose her. He wants to see Hinata, but she’s around every corner—every turn, and he can feel her swimming only a few paces behind him, even now.

It’s just about time when Hinata and him would usually meet up. It suddenly dawns on him why she was so persistent, and his hunting knife drops from his fingers. 

She picks it up, smiling widely as she holds it out for him, but her expression falters when she she sees his expression. Her hand drops to her sides and her eyebrows bunch together, concern in her eyes. "Kageyama, what's—?"

“You’re following me because Daichi asked you to, right?” He can’t help the bitter tone that seeps into his voice—he’s a little angry, if he’s honest.

Yachi makes it clear he was right. “What are you talking about?” She asks, but she looks nervous. It’s probably how he looks when he’s lying about where he’s going, and it’s no wonder Daichi called him out for it.

“Don’t play dumb!” he growls, and she flinches. He takes a breath, and apologizes. “I’m sorry—I just…Did he tell you to follow me, or did he just make sure you kept watch because he doesn’t trust me anymore?”

“…He trusts you,” Yachi slowly says, fidgeting with her fingers. “He wanted me to make sure you were okay, that’s all.”

He has a hard time believing that, but he won’t give Yachi grief for it. He’s not about to shoot the messenger. He sighs deeply and runs a hand through his hair. At this point, he’s a little desperate to get her off his trail, even for a little while.

“You can go back, I’m not doing anything dangerous as you can see, right?” he says. She looks crestfallen, but nods at him. “Okay,” Is what she murmurs back. “I’m sorry for doing that without telling you—you’re not mad at me, right?” Her tone is hopeful, as she searches his face, hands clasped together tightly.

He’s not mad at her; It’s not her fault that he broke Daichi’s trust, after all. She was just doing what she was told, unlike him. “It’s fine,” He says, and the astounded look on her face tells him he might actually be smiling for once—or that she’s just sincerely happy she’s forgiven. “I’ll see you later, okay? We’re still on for hunting tomorrow, right?” He asks, and her eyes light up as she enthusiastically nods. 

“Yeah! Okay!” Is the last thing she says, before waving and swimming off. 

He’s not sure why she left, exactly—maybe she felt bad for following him?—but he’ll take it.

He doesn’t hesitate, and makes use of every second he has. As soon as Yachi’s out of sight, he’s dodging seaweed as he swiftly flies through the water, using a roundabout path to the surface.

He’d never usually take this path, but he had to take precaution. It takes him a little longer than he’d like, but soon enough he bobs his head above the water, and sees Hinata close by, kicking his feet through the water in the tidepools.

Hinata is alerted to his presence as soon as he’s close, head shooting up and a smile across his face as Kageyama swims by.

“You sure took your time, didn’t you?”

“Shut up, I was a little busy.” He says, corssing his arms on the surface in the sand near Hinata.

“Doing what?” Hinata asks, eyebrow raised.

_Just avoiding some of my kind, because they figured out im lying to them about something and now they want to guard me at every waking moment of the day to make sure I won’t get into trouble._

“Nothing really,” He mutters. The less Hinata knew, probably the better they were off.

“So!” Hinata cut in cheerfully, breaking the horrible mood he was starting their visit with. He claps his hands together, and stands up, making his way toward the red bag he always carried with him. “I brought the volleyball, do you want to play?”

“Not…really, sorry.” He hated the sad puppy expression that happens on Hinata’s face after it’s sad, but playing volleyball was loud, and he was already scraping by from the skin on his teeth for this one. Daichi had already found this spot before, unknowingly. He hopes he doesn’t find it again, and even if he himself doesn’t like it either, volleyball might have to wait for a while.

“You’re worried, right?” Hinata asks, and sits back down where he was, knees dipping back in the water.

“A little,” He mumbles. He didn’t want to share too much on the subject, but he needed to clear his head somehow.

Theres a long pause, where Hinata watches him, light stare grazing his face as he avoids it, staring at the waters reflection of Hinata, instead. It was a much safer option.

“Would you prefer we stopped meeting for a few days until you’re in the clear?”

Kageyama’s heart stutters after that. Would it be a better idea if he stopped coming for a while? It’d get Yachi off his back for good if he wasn’t doing anything, she wouldn’t have anything to share with Daichi. If she had nothing to report, then maybe he would trust him again? 

“I don’t want to,” Kageyama sighs eventually. “I don’t. but it might be for the best if I left for a few nights. If they find me here—I won’t be able to come back, ever.”

“Then it’s fine, then.” Hinata says, although his eyes betray his words, and he looks a little lonely at the thought. And Although Kageyama wouldn’t say it—he felt very much the same. Meeting like this was a risk, but it’s something he couldn’t say he regretted. Being with Hinata was enjoyable, and even if they were to part for a few days, he couldn’t say he would be fine with it and be telling the truth.

“Do you have to leave yet, though?” Hinata asks, small smile on his face. “Even if it’s only for a little while; you’re here right now, and what would be the point of going home immediately?”

He could think of a dozen reasons why going home immediately might be a better option, but he nods to Hinata anyway. “I’ll stay. But only for a little while.”

“Good.”

And then Hinata starts peeling off his shirt, and Kageyama’s eyes widen. “Hey! What’re you doing?” 

Hinata laughs, lost in the fabric of his shirt as he pulls it overhead. “I’m going to go swimming with you, obviously.” 

He frees himself of the shirt, tossing it towards his bag, only for it to tumble down into the sand. He shrugs, and charges into the bigger tidepool Kageyama was in.

“Hey!” Kageyama yells as the water from Hinata’s jump splashes him in the face. _What happened to being quiet so they wouldn’t get found?!_

The bob of bright orange hair bursts from below the surface, and he shakes the little droplets everywhere. “The water is nice!” he says, standing up. 

“Are you a dog?” Kageyama asks.

“These pools are a little deeper than I thought,” Hinata hums, ignoring his question and sinking down onto his knees, up to his shoulders in water. He shivers visibly. “It’s a lot colder in here at night, too.” 

“Idiot,” Kageyama mumbles, but swims closer.

He soon regrets getting closer when Hinata suddenly grabs one of his hands, pulling it to his cheek. His heart does a little flip at the action, and he ignores it and tries to shake his hand out of Hinata’s grasp, but to no avail.

“Wow! No wonder you don’t look cold. You’re hand is even colder than the water!” Hinata laughs, dropping his hand.

“Did you forget that I _live_ in the water? Why wouldn’t I be used to it?”

“Well, yeah—I know that,” he mumbles. “But don’t you ever get cold with the temperature at all? What about winter?”

He sighs, and resigns into another round Of Hinata’s pointless questioning. “I can feel the cold, yeah, but I only register the cold when I come above the surface in the winter. The water is warm compared to the wind—It’s the same for you, you know.” As an afterthought he adds: “We’re usually in warmer oceans for the cold months, anyway.”

“ I see,” Hinata hums. He starts paddling through the pools, flopping amateurishly around Kageyama. 

“What are you doing?” Kageyama asks. 

“Swimming!”

His eyebrow bunch together. “Doesn’t look much like swimming, it looks like you’re flopping around to me.”

“Shut it,” Hinata says. “I’m sorry I don’t have webbed fingers and a fish tail to help me swim more accurately for you, your highness.”

He freezes at the nickname, and Hinata just keeps ‘swimming’ around him in the water, humming like he didn’t just stop Kageyama cold in his tracks.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” He asks eventually, sitting up into a crouch. When he sees Kageyama, his eyes turn into concern. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” 

“Why did you call me that?”

“Would you have rather me called you princess? It’s just a saying, dummy.” He deadpans, but his expression quickly turns to horror. “Wait, are you actually royalty?” He lets out a long gasp. And points at him. “Have I been hanging out with a king of mermaids after all this time?! Is that why you have people looking for you so much?”

Kageyama smacks the back of his head, sending him tumbling into the ocean, and to choke out seawater when he comes back up for air. “I’m not a king, dumbass.” Kageyama mutters, annoyed. “Don’t call me that.”

Hinata chokes on more air. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not a king—not royalty.”

Hinata watches him for a moment, a silent pause as he pushes wet hair back. “I won’t do it, then.” He says with a strange certainty Kageyama isn’t sure he’s heard from him before.

He wonders briefly If Hinata had known about the nickname others had called him, murmuring about the distant boy with the stuck up attitude—they’d called him king behind his back soon enough, muttering cold words about the newcomer who acted so quiet and reserved, like he was better than everybody else. It left a bad taste in his mouth every time he heard the name, and tsukishima knew it irked him. Although he tried to ignore it the best he could.

Hinata couldn’t have known—it wouldn’t have even been a possibility to have known or heard that nickname unless he spoke with Tsukishima, which he also knows didn’t happen. (if it did, Daichi would’ve already sent him on his way out, probably.)

“Hey,” Hinata suddenly says. “So are we going to go swimming, or not?”

Kageyama looks up at Hinata, who had gotten to the other side of the pool in the time that he had been lost in thought. “Yeah.” He says, diving.

He floats effortlessly to the other side of the pool, alongside Hinata, who has a weird awestruck expression.

“What?”

“I’ve never really seen you swim before this, y’know.”

“What are you talking about?” Kageyama scoffs. “You see me swim all the time.”

Hinata shuffles against a ledge in the water as Kageyama floats closer.

“No I don’t—I watch you float around, like this. I’ve never seen you swim around so naturally like that, you always disappear too fast when you leave to actually see anything.”

“Well It is cramped in here, you know.” 

“Then we should swim out in the ocean sometime, yeah?” he holds up a hand to Kageyama’s face before he can speak. “I don’t mean tonight, I mean another time. When you don’t have a search party after you.”

It sounds fun enough, and Kageyama feels himself nod somewhat enthusiastically. “Okay.” It might be a while, but it’s a promise for sometime soon, and Kageyama was patient, to an extent. He just hoped he wouldn’t be in the spotlight much longer, and Daichi would forgive, him, believe him, and that Yachi wouldn’t track him anymore because of Daichi’s lost faith in him.

“Hey!” Hinata suddenly squeals, and Kageyama cocks his head to the side. 

“What did I do?”

“Your tail just grazed my leg. It’s really slimy, wow.”

“oh.” He replies, noticing suddenly how close they are. He pulls his tail off to the side, farther away from Hinata. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok, It just spooked me a little.” He smiles, and suddenly Kageyama can see all the fiery highlights in those brown eyes, with the proximity they’re at from each other. “In the movies I told you about—the ones with mermaids, people always want to touch mermaids’ tails when they meet them.”

Kageyama raises an eyebrow at that. People made movies about meeting with mermaids? And humans wanted to touch their tails? That sounded a little… odd. _I mean sure, I found feet interesting a bit considering I don’t have any,_ he thinks, _but what would be so appealing about a tail? Humans see plenty of other creatures with ones just like them. What a curious bunch,_ he thinks. “Are you saying you want to touch mine?”

“No, and I just did. It was gross. You really are just part fish,” Hinata laughs, and dodges the swipe from Kageyama’s incoming fist. 

“Your feet aren’t that great either! You humans have dry flaky skin!” He counters. Hinata dives into the water, swimming to the other side of the pool, and Kageyama’s quick to follow, not letting him get away.

Hinata called it ‘swimming’ but it sure didn’t seem like it. It did make a great commotion in the water though, and Kageyama can barely catch Hinata with all the floundering he’s doing, making waves and plenty of bubbles preventing Kageyama from getting close.

He finally Catches Hinata’s ankle, and drags him back up to the surface. A splash fight is started by Hinata, and they go back and forth at it for a while before they lost their breath, and watch each other carefully from across the other.

“Hey, Kageyama.” Hinata speaks breathlessly.

“What?” 

“How tall are you?”

“How would I know, stupid?”

“C’mere for a sec.” 

Kageyama pushes a wave toward him. “No way, this is a trick. You’re gonna drag me under, or something.”

“Do you really think I would play so unfair?!” 

“Yes.”

“Just come here,” Hinata growls, hands outstretched for Kageyama.

“Nope,” He replies.

“I mean—we couldn’t accurately tell, or anything, but your tail is pretty long, you know? You’d probably be tall if you had feet, like 2 meters or something.”

He measures it out in his head, frowning. “That’s a little extreme, you know. I’d probably be tall, but not that tall.” With a smirk, he adds, “Definitely taller than you, though.”

“Kageyama,” Hinata whines, “don’t make fun of my height—I’ll be tall some day!”

“Doubt it,” Kageyama snickers as they go for another round of chase.

It goes on for a while—the chasing, the playful banter, the splashing each other and the laughter. Kageyama’s cheeks hurt a bit from smiling too hard, and that was saying something. It might’ve only been smirking, or laughing too hard, but it’s more then he’s done in years, and he can feel it.

Hinata ends up on land again, plastered on his back as he catches his breath again. Kageyama’s hardly better though, diving under to suck in mouthfuls at a time to make up for how dry his lungs felt after the chase. 

He surfaces after a moment, feeling a little more refreshed. Hinata sits up, still breathing a bit hard. 

“You should have brought water, idiot.” He scolds, smacking Hinata’s knee that was still draped in the water. 

“I didn’t think swimming would leave me so out of breath!” He says. “I’ll remember for next time, right?”

“Right.” Kageyama nods.

Hinata’s expression is dazzling, shadows reflecting just right off of Hinata to make his eyes shine, even with the moonlight being so faint.

Until he’s no longer smiling, breath hitched and staring behind Kageyama instead of meeting his eyes directly. Hinata squints for only a second before his eyes go wide.

“…Hey, Kageyama.” He asks, slowly and curiously, addressing with his chin to just beyond Kageyama’s head, to something— _someone_ else. “Who’s that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok! so like last week on my blog i wrote i would have the chapter up in 1-2 days so im SUPER SORRY how late this came out!! when I wrote that i was only about half done and i thought i would finish it in around the same amount of time it took me to write it but then i had a total I-don't-know-what-to-write-next moment and that moment lasted for a few days and i was busy preparing for school again so i just ended up with the document open until now oops :( So yeah rlly sorry about that and i hope i update next chapter a bit sooner?
> 
> Also please tell me what you thought of the chapter! I'm really glad if you're enjoying it, and even if i dont reply please know i really appreciate comments and ppl telling me their thoughts on the story so far!  
> Also thank you for so many hits and kudos?!?! THANK YOU SERIOUSLY WOW
> 
> Until next time <3


	5. Placing Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls read the notes at the end cuz i have surprises there~

Kageyama’s head turns so fast, he might as well have gotten whiplash. The blood in his veins runs ice cold as he sees a fleeing mermaid from behind the rock—he doesn’t catch their face, but the pink tail disappearing beneath the waves sticks out like a sore thumb, and is all too familiar for him to think of consider anyone else. 

_Yachi._

He dives before thinking, hearing a muffled “Kageyama, wait!” from Hinata through all the bubbles in his ears. Yachi may have been a fast swimmer—certainly fast enough to escape sharks or any human contraption, but not fast enough to beat Kageyama. It’s not without effort though when he speeds up beside her, close enough to reach out and grab her wrist to stop her from swimming any closer to home. 

“Yachi, hold on a minute, Please! You don’t understand he’s—he’s harmless, I swear!”

She turns back to him, eyes wide and expression unbelieving. Her thin wrist is shaking in Kageyama’s grasp, to top it off. She was frightened. “ _Harmless?_ ” She laughs out mirthlessly, searching his face. “He’s a human, Kageyama—They aren’t _harmless_ —they’ve _killed_ us before, and you want to call them harmless? Why would you speak to one of them?!” 

Kageyama huffs out bubbles through his nose, relaxing when he felt her not trying to rip her arm out of his grasp. But he doesn’t let go of her completely, that would be a mistake. It was obvious how deep the fear ran among them when it came to humans from just looking at her—how deep it was driven into their learning. It was a little sad, seeing someone as friendly as Yachi be so repulsed by the idea that humans weren’t all bad.

“Yachi, just—don’t run, ok? Please?”

She eyes the hand now almost lying around her wrist, and sighs. “Even if I tried, I wouldn’t get far.” A pause, and then, “So tell me already. Why were you with a human?”

He takes a deep breath, because he’s going to need it for this explanation. 

“I met him a while ago, there was an incident in the shallows of the beach I often visited, and that human saw me in the water. It was an accident, but I met him once again after that. My curiosity got the best of me, and when he asked to meet again—I didn’t refuse, and we’ve been meeting every night since.” He drops her wrist, waiting for a reaction. That’s the most important part of the story, right? As long as she knows he’s not a total traitor and siding with them in secrecy or something—he was just spending his free time with one. Not like that was much better, but it was her choice now what she decided to do with the information given.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s where you’ve been going all these night now? Daichi’s been so worried, and he had a right to! Visiting a human, of all things, really?!” she shakes her head, crosses her arms close to her chest. “ Didn’t Daichi teach you anything? They are murderers, you know. They lie, they betray and they kill! Why would you risk talking to one?”

From the sound of her voice, Kageyama can tell she speaks purely from fear. She was always a jittery one from what he’d seen. Easy to spook, and was even nervous when they had to go through really dark parts of the water, afraid of what might be hiding within. It’s not surprising that she’d sucked up every word about them like a sponge, taking them to heart and ignoring what he’d said otherwise. Their species was known to hate and fear them, after all.

“Yachi, that’s just some of them. Have you ever even met one yourself?”

She opens her mouth, ready to defend herself, but promptly closes it. “Well, no, not exactly…”

“Then how could you prove that all of them are liars and killers?” 

He doesn’t know why he’s protecting Hinata from yachi’s words like this. _Hell_ —he doesn’t even know how dangerous a situation he could be getting into. Hinata could be lying for all he knew but… He was willing to trust him. Hinata seemed to stupid to come up with a brilliant lure of a mermaid trap, anyway. He’d always thought that, and his opinion hadn’t really changed from then.

“Are you defending them?” she asks, eyes narrowed. His heart sinks at the thought of her darting off to tell Daichi all of this. 

“I’m not defending them, I just—I’m defending him. Only him. He’s not bad, I swear. Even if the rest of them are like what you say—he’s not.”

“How would you know?”

“I just do, okay?” He says. 

Yachi studies him, looking him up and down before nodding, only slightly. “Fine, I trust your judgement. Sort of, anyway.” He frowns, but she carries on. “I won’t tell Daichi about this—he’d probably be better of not knowing, actually. That’s what you’re worried about, right?”

“ _Thank you._ ” he breathes.

“Then I won’t.” she smiles, if only a little, and He feels himself breathe properly for the first time since this conversation started.

“…How did you find me anyway, Yachi?” 

“Oh,” she blinks a few times, embarrassment flooding her cheeks as she opens the pack at her hip, pulling out Kageyama’s hunting knife and holding it out for him. “I didn’t mean to spy, ok? You left your knife back there, and I held onto it by accident. I figured you hadn’t gotten far, so I wanted to give it back to you in case you needed it. I was almost within the pod territory when I realised it was still in my hand.” She stretches her hand out more, passing the item delicately into Kageyama’s hands. 

“Oh, thanks.” 

“I promise I won’t tell anyone—but I think I’ll get going now, Kageyama. This is a lot to take in. Don’t you want to go back and see him again, anyway?” she asks.

He blinks. It would be a bad idea to let her leave right now, right? _she still might tell daichi,_ he convinces himself, shaking a bit in his skin as he suggests, “Why don’t you meet him for yourself?”

“…What? No!” She says, waving both her hands in front of her face. “No no no, I can’t—no can do, I’m sorry.”

She looks uncomfortable, like she’d rather be anywhere but where she was. Kageyama snorts. “Scared?”

“Of course!” She retorts, scratching at her arms. “I just told you I was afraid of humans and you want me to go see him? I’ll die on the spot, if he doesn’t kill me first!”

“Hinata wouldn’t do that to you.”

She gapes at him. “You know his _name,_ too?”

“Human’s like to share those kinds of details first, it seems.”

He can see the hesitation on her face, but also the confliction as she opens and shuts her mouth, gaping like a fish.

“Daichi was wrong about them, you know—he was wrong about him. Hinata’s kind, and he won’t hurt you. Have you ever been only inches away from a human before? If you come with me, I’m sure he’ll let you get as close as you want. ”

Yachi silently regards him, mouth still shut but considering the idea, by the looks of it. She wasn’t saying no, and Kageyama feels like that was at least a small win—he was right about her curiosity with humans, it seemed. All mermaids were curious, and when theres a whole society just out of their reach, who wouldn’t want to a taste of what it’s like there? It was in their blood to be curious, it was why they searched shipwrecks, and grabbed shiny things that the humans had dropped into their waters. It’s probably the reason he ended up coming back to Hinata, as well. He was certain she did want to see one; Just scared to do so on her own. 

“You don’t have to stay long—just meet him, please Yachi. You can leave after that, just trust me a little, okay?” He asks, a little urgent.

She seems to think it over, biting her lip in nervousness. Her eyes close, and she takes a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll meet him. But if he does anything scary—anything at all—I’m leaving.”

“That’s fine.”

“I mean it Kageyama! First sign of danger and I’m _gone._ ”

“Do you really think I’d let him hurt you?” He asks.

“Well…no, probably not.” she mutters.

“Then come on, stop worrying.”

And then he’s leading the way, as she nervously floats behind him—up to the surface, to meet Hinata.

~

It’s far too quiet. In all honesty, he probably should have gone home a lot sooner. There was no guarantee Kageyama was coming back, or anything like that. He’d left after the other mermaid did—the one with the shimmery pink tail, and neither of them came back yet. It leaves his stomach feeling sore with worry, wound in knots at the possibilities of what might be happening while he wasn’t with Kageyama.

It was only for a brief moment, but the image of the girl—the other mermaid, was stamped into his mind. The blonde shoulder-length hair and the blue eyes, reflecting the waves and even visible in the dark moonlight. It seemed like her eyes had carried some type of reflection like a cats, visible even in the night. Kageyama’s were like that too, and it was a bit spooky sometimes.

He tells himself to go home—no use worrying and sitting there, waiting all night. But what if Kageyama needed him? What if the one moment he wasn’t there, the other really needed him? It kept him edging towards the water if anything and he suddenly wished he was better at swimming. That he could swim to Kageyama, and help him out if he needed him. that’d be nice.

He didn’t really know what Kageyama was facing, but the whole ordeal with him avoiding his own people to meet Hinata made him a little queasy too. _It’s probably my fault if he’s in trouble in the first place,_ he thinks, another churn in his gut.

The thought crosses his mind, but his thoughts come to a crashing halt when he sees Kageyama emerge from the water nearby.

“Kageyama!” He gasps, nerves pushing him up off the ground. “What happened? Did you get in trouble—“  
His words also stop coming when he sees another head emerge from the water near to Kageyama. Her expression is stern, eyebrows drawn together a little too seriously, but he can see the lingering fear in those eyes, even from afar. 

Kageyama goes behind her encouraging her forward. She hisses something in return, something that wasn’t Japanese—or _any_ language he’d heard before. _so they did have a language of their own,_ he muses.

She’s only feet away before he sits back down, relaxing into the sand. He doesn’t know what to say—this other mermaid is new to him, and if Kageyama had told him anything about the other people he’s with, Hinata might have a sharper idea of who this was, but he had nothing.

He doesn’t know what to say—what’ll get them in the least trouble. She didn’t look like a figure or authority, and from her voice alone he knew she wasn’t the one who had tried to find Kageyama the other night, calling to him from near the rocks. But she still might have some impact on whether he sees Kageyama again, so he tries his best.

“Hi,” he starts with, with a small wave. 

She flinches the tiniest bit, but crawls closer in the water anyway. He stays still, doesn’t really know what to do past speaking.

“You are Hinata?” She suddenly asks, voice a bit small, but clear enough for him to understand.

“That would be me,” He nods, and looks over to Kageyama at their side, who looks just about as nervous as he feels in that moment.

It’s a little hard to hold in all his excitement, nervous or not. He’s practically shaking with it down to his toes, and as soon as his mouth opens again, the questions just roll off his tongue after.

“So what’s your name?” He asks in return, all smiles.

“…Yachi Hitoka.” She replies hesitantly.

“Are you one of Kageyama’s friends?”

“I-I guess you could say that,” She blinks.

“Are those _starfish_ in your hair?”

“Y-yeah, they are.” she nods, fiddling with the tips of her hair.

“How do you get them to stick like that? Do they just attach on?” he rambles, tilting his head at the hairstyle. “It looks nice, either way. So how old are you?” 

Hinata’s positively beaming as he fires off the questions, barely able to hold in his curiosity by the last one. It might have been for the better, too, as Yachi didn’t look as nervous anymore. The stern expression she tried holding together melted into a wobbly half-smile throughout Hinata’s Banter, and Kageyama sighed from the sidelines, swimming up to Hinata to slap his shoulder.

“Hey. Don’t ask her so many questions like that, she’s nervous.”

“I’m sorry,” Hinata apologizes to Yachi, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve only ever had Kageyama around to talk with, so I was a little curious about other merpeople, since he wouldn’t tell me a thing,” Hinata whines, slouching forward as he kicks his feet childishly.

“It’s okay,” her smile is a bit more confident as she nods.

“You still needs to chill out—she’s never even seen a human this close before, idiot.” Kageyama says, and perches himself on a rock that juts out of the water nearest to Hinata.

Yachi looks more than amused, and her eyes shine brightly, even in the dark.

“Oh, Shoot,” Hinata gasps, alerting both of the merpeople. “It’s really late, shouldn’t you both be heading back?” _Shouldn’t I be heading back, too?_

They both simultaneously freeze, looking between each other in an unspoken agreement as they nod at Hinata.

It wasn’t too hard to believe they lost track of time with what went on, but Kageyama was still supposed to leave early that night, whether Hinata wanted to talk more or not. He should’ve been in bed a while ago, too.

“I should be going too—see you whenever you come next, Kageyama! Nice meeting you, Yachi!” he waves to them and reluctantly stands up, grabbing his back and cringing at the time as he checks his phone. _2:30am on the nose._ He cringes.

 

“I-It was nice meeting you too,” Yachi stutters out, waving as she dives into the water after a glance at both Hinata and Kageyama.

Hinata’s almost ready to sprint into the forest and back through the trail home when he hears Kageyama’s voice behind him.

“Hinata.”

“yes?” He crouches by the water-side, where Kageyama swims up to him.

“I’m sorry about tonight—I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I’ll try my best to meet you out here again as soon as possible, so can you look for me until then?” He asks.

“Who was she, anyway?” Hinata asks. With hesitance, he adds quietly, “Is she going to tell on you, or something? Are you in trouble?”

“…I don’t think so,” Kageyama says slowly. “I told her you were okay, and she said she wouldn’t tell anybody about this, so… we _might_ just be in the clear.”

Hinata exhales with slight exaggeration, but he truly feels relieved. “That’s good. Anyway, isn’t she waiting for you? You should get going.” He smiles, leans forward and hugs Kageyama before he can say anything, and pulls away before he can get smacked for it. “I have to go too. I’ll see you soon, okay? Whenever that may be. So stay out of trouble until then!” Hinata replies, scooting away from a frozen Kageyama and onto the forest path.

Kageyama blinks a few times before diving back under, following in Yachi’s path.

~

“Were you saying goodbye to him?” Yachi asks quietly as she swims alongside Kageyama. “You took a while.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“So this is really what you were hiding, huh? I thought you disliked us, or something. I was a little surprised when Daichi asked me to trail you. I didn’t expect anything like that, though.” She laughs, a bit nervously.

Kageyama flicks his tail in annoyance as he swims. “I never _disliked_ you guys. You’ve been kind to me the entire time, and I’m sorry I couldn’t return the favour to you.” He ignores the sad look Yachi is giving him, and continues on. “I truly did come across him by accident, but I figured if Daichi or anyone else found out, I would be kicked out without a second thought. So I kind of avoided you guys for that reason alone.” 

“I’m sorry for not believing in you, then,” Yachi replies, pushing past the seaweed in their path. “I was really glad though—when you started talking with me, and with everyone else. I was a little nervous to talk to you on my own, but it made me happy, even if you only did it for hunting purposes,” She smiles, and carries on.

“Hinata’s nice too. I never expected a human to be like that, you know? The way Daichi talks about them as if they’re evil, or something, really. He told me they were awful, terrible creatures who only caused pain and sadness, and did things for themselves. When I met Hinata, it wasn’t hard to see how kind he was, even from just from that short time up there with him. It surprised me, really. I didn’t think they were like us at all—but I guess Daichi isn’t right about everything.” She hums.

“Stop giving Hinata so much credit,” Kageyama mumbles. “He’s not perfect or anything, he’s kind of annoying, actually.”

“But you still like him a lot, right?” She laughs.

“Well, yeah.” he mutters, cheeks heating up as Yachi laughs more at him. 

They end up in front of Kageyama’s small cave, and Kageyama turns around to wish her goodnight, but she speaks before him.

“You live so far out from the rest of us.” She grumbles. “Move closer toward the pod. Daichi would be thrilled if you took the time to go to another one of those nightly gatherings, you know?”

“…I think he’s a little mad at me for lying to him at the moment.” Kageyama retorts quietly.

“Nonsense,” She smiles. “What’s a better apology then doing something for him? He really cares about you, you know. There’s no reason he’d ask me to follow you around if he didn’t. He just wants you to be okay. Why don’t you come tomorrow night? And then the next night, you can go see Hinata again!”

Kageyama perks up, eyes wide. “You mean you’d cover for me? Why?”

She twirls around in the direction of her own home, floating away slowly. “What do you mean, why? We’re friends, right? You even told Hinata yourself.” She smiles at him kindly. “And I didn’t lie earlier—I won’t tell Daichi a thing. At least, not about Hinata anyway. I’ll tell him you really were just exploring and trying to improve your hunting—maybe throw in that you were hunting for sharks and just too embarrassed to say it.” she smiles. “ I might tag along with you one of these nights, as well. Hinata is interesting. I also want to see Hinata again soon.” 

“Yeah, that’s fine…” He says, still stunned. “Thank you, Yachi. Really.”

“Goodnight, Kageyama!” She calls, waving to him.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, voice small and happy. He waves until she’s out of view, before curling up in his cave and going to sleep for the night.

~

“Kageyama! Good to see you.” Daichi greets as he swims into the clearing, where Yachi was beckoning him over with a wave and patting the spot next to her. 

“Yeah,” he replies a little shyly, still a little anxious about talking with Daichi. He only smiles, though, and it looks anything but fake or forced. He pats Kageyama’s back again as he swims by, and within the little motion alone, Kageyama relaxes. _All if forgiven and forgotten,_ it felt like he was being told with the Gesture. 

Kageyama was about to swim over to Yachi, but he’s stopped by two bullets darting into his sides named Nishinoya and Tanaka. He should’ve expected this, considering they had tackled him at the previous meeting, too, and smacks them away with his hands.

“You finally showed up again, Kageyama! We were wondering when you’d get back!” Nishinoya says, grinning up to his ears. “We were taking bets on how long you’d stay a no-show.”

“Noya, don’t be rude,” Asahi gently chastises from the sidelines, at the edge of his seat like he didn’t know whether to get up and stop the small merman from Harassing Kageyama.

“It’s alright, Asahi!” Tanaka calls, pulling Kageyama into a chokehold. “We’re just kindly bullying our Kouhai, who we haven’t seen in a while. We’ll be done in a minute.”

“You’re done now,” Daichi replies, appearing out of nowhere to drag the two by the shoulders away from Kageyama, who was about to join Yachi—but is stopped yet again by a certain blond he wished to avoid.

“My, My, what are you doing here? I thought you were still sulking about your old pod from afar. Do you finally understand they won’t be coming back for you?” Tsukishima says.

“Tsukishima,” Daichi warns.

Kageyama doesn’t reply, but swims around Tsukishima, who was confidently smiling about his ‘win’ as he sat down with Yamaguchi, who nervously looked back and forth between two, trying to convince Tsukishima to be nicer. Like that would ever happen.

The black haired boy pays it no mind, sitting beside Yachi as the others gathered around, including Kiyoko, who sits on Yachi’s other side.

“Good evening, Kageyama,” she says, leaning forward to maintain eye contact with him.  
He nods, and Shimizu smiles delicately, looking back to Yachi afterword, saying the same to her. In turn, Yachi stutters out a loud “Good evening to you too, Kiyoko-san!” and blushes down to her neck, fists clumped together in her lap as she avoided eye contact.

It suddenly clicks in Kageyama’s head why she was always so close to Kiyoko—he thought before that they’d been only good friends, but with that reaction, it wasn’t hard to notice the little crush the small blonde was harbouring for her. A lot of things start clicking in together, actually.

 _Good luck, Yachi._ he thinks. She had a lot of competition, after all. there were many vying for Kiyoko Shimizu’s heart.

But the way Kiyoko smiles at Yachi in return, covering her mouth with a small laugh as Yachi’s complexion only got more crimson in return, matching that of a vibrant beta fish—he wondered if Kiyoko was in the same boat as well. Not many could get a smile out of her, much less a laugh. 

When Yachi looks at him, he only smiles lightly to her—he _thinks_ he was smiling, anyway. The way Yachi gets even more choked up and stuttering has him almost sure of it. Now he only had to rub it in Hinata’s face later.

The evening went smoothly after that, and Kageyama felt at ease. A calm night full of laughs all around, and he didn’t feel out of place this time. It felt nice to feel like he belonged. 

~

“Where do you keep going every night, Shouyou?” his sister asks, tossing the ball to him.

Of course she’d catch on eventually—even if she did go to sleep early, he’s not very good at concealing how tired he is. No matter how much energy he throws out when doing things in the day, he still can’t conceal the redness of his eyes or the purple bags that form under them. He’d gone to sleep at 3am and slept in until his sister would wake him up herself, and it’s been like that for the past week now. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies, not so smoothly, as he tosses the ball back. It’s not a volleyball, and although he would’ve loved to teach her more, she insisted for once they play regular tossing games, the kind where the ball couldn’t touch the ground or you’d lose. It was hard to find something more exciting when they only had two people, so hide and seek and tag had already been out of the question from day one. So for now, they were just leisurely tossing to each other, and of course, Natsu brings up the most sensitive topic first. The one he can’t honestly answer.

“You know what I’m talking about,” She says drily, tossing the ball back with a bit more force. He catches it anyway, and makes a face at her. “I found the notes you threw in the trash, too. the ones grandpa told you to make when you head out for the night? There’s at least a half a stack of a sticky note pad in there.”

“There is most certainly not _half,_ ” He says confidently. He didn’t even carry that many on him. he was lucky to find so many unused ones scattered in his bag from school.

“Maybe not, but do you really want to see the pile?” she retorts. “So where have you been going?”

“Not telling,”

“I could just follow you!” 

“No way, you’re way too young to be staying up as late as I do. I bet you won’t even stay up past eight o’ clock, anyway.”

“I will too!”

Their grandfather interrupts their quarrel with a soft laugh and a tray of lemonade. He places it on the outdoor table, and pulls out one of the three chairs to sit down.

“Now, Natsu, Give your brother some space. He’s just exploring the area, right?” His eyes narrow closed from the sunlight, and he pulls his hat down more as he looks to Hinata.

“It’s true. You’re just thinking too hard, Natsu.” Hinata smiles, ruffles her hair as he walks by to go sit with their grandfather.

“But that’s not fair,” Natsu whines. “I want to come too, and you’re exploring new places without me!”

“You hang out with me all day,” he snorts. Sips his lemonade. “If it really bothers you, I won’t go tonight. I’m not even exploring anything, I’m just walking along the beach.”

_This is fine, right? Kageyama said he wouldn’t be there for a while, anyway, to cover for himself so nobody would find them hanging out again. It would be okay to not go tonight, if it’ll keep my sister off my back._

“Do you like the ocean, Shouyou?” his grandfather asks suddenly.

He blinks. “Yeah, the waters’ really nice at this time of year.”

“Is that the reason you keep going out at night?”

“Sort of,” He responds, shrugging. “I like the air at night, it’s really fresh. The water’s nice too.”

“See any fish out there?”

He almost snorts. _Yeah. A giant, angry fish who’s going to get wrinkles early from the amount of angry faces he makes._

“Not really, no.”

“Then we should change that,” He hums. “I have a boat, you know. Haven’t brought it out in years. We could go out fishing tomorrow, if you both would like?”

“Sounds awesome!” Natsu yells. 

“I’ll go get everything ready, then.” He smiles.

~

He’s in bed early that night, far too early for someone used to sleeping at 3am, and he’s stuck staring at the ceiling and hoping Kageyama isn’t out there at their spot _waiting_ for him to show up when his phone vibrates.

He grabs for it, and is instantly blinded by the brightness of the screen.

 

**From: Sugawara (10:18pm)  
>How are things going? Did you have a good day?**

He doesn’t really know how to reply. It’s weird, really. Sugawara hasn’t ever texted him this much in the past, and he’s probably texted him more since he went on this vacation more then throughout the school year. He doesn’t think about it too much, but instead clicks onto the keyboard.

**To: Sugawara (10:19pm)  
>I had a great day. I spent most of it chasing my sister around, but it was fun. How was yours? Is everything okay?**

He receives a reply moments later.

**From: Sugawara (10:21pm)  
>Ah, Sorry. Everything is fine, don’t worry! My day was great. I just wanted to check in on you, and see how you’re doing, since you seemed a little down the day you left. You’re having fun, right? Meet any people there?**

_Not just **anyone,**_ he wants to reply. He types out something different, of course.

**To: Sugawara (10:23pm)  
>I met some nice people, yeah.**

He thinks about Kageyama and Yachi, then adds:

** >There’s two people I’ve met here, One of them is kind of a grump, to be honest. But he’s nice to be around, too. And he likes volleyball!! I met a girl, too, and I don’t know her that well yet, but I think we’ll get along just fine.**

**From: Sugawara (10:26pm)  
>That’s good to hear!**

Before Hinata can reply, Sugawara has sent another message.

** >Having any luck finding Daichi yet? **

That was Sugawara’s friend, right? His fingers hover at the keyboard. Why was he bringing it up again? Did he want him to look for him?

**To: Sugawara (10:30pm)  
>I can look for him if you want?? Though I’m not in town, anymore, and there’s not many people who go by the beach my grandfather lives at.**

**From: Sugawara (10:31pm)  
>Ahh no, that’s okay. I doubt you’d find him anyway, I was just wondering, since you said you were looking. Sorry. I was a little curious how that went.**

After a long moment, he sends another message, again.

** >You shouldn’t go looking for him, though. Really. I said we were friends, but even if he remembers me, it probably isn’t good memories for him.**

 

Hinata’s eyebrows move together. Did Sugawara have a fight with him before they parted? If anything, it explained why he brought it up again—he wanted to know if the other was okay, maybe? Maybe he missed him, too?

And the words _‘Don’t do it, seriously,’_ only made him want to seek the guy out more. For Suga, he could do that much, at least. He’d ask Kageyama. He’s a _merman_ —surely he’s heard the name somewhere, right? It was worth a shot to ask. He was hanging out by the beach the first time they met, after all.

**To: Sugawara (10:35pm)  
>I won’t, then. Goodnight, Suga.**

**From: Sugawara (10:35pm)  
>Goodnight, Hinata! Talk to you soon.**

Even after putting his phone away, the conversation rings clearly in his mind. If Sugawara was that curious, he surely didn’t mean for him to _not_ seek him out after it was brought up. If he could find the guy, the least he could do was give him Suga’s number so they could talk and work things out. Or at least, he hoped it could happen. He just needed to find the guy—Sugawara obviously wanted to know what happened to him, too.

He goes to bed that night with a plan for the next day, a goal. 

He would find Sawamura Daichi, for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK OK SO IVE BEEN HOLDING THIS ONE IN FOR A WHILE AND IM VERY EXCITED BUT NOW U CAN SEE THIS IS PART OF A SERIES >:D  
> My choice to make this into a series was made before i actually wrote anything for it, but i wanted to see how well shoreline did before i decided to go through with it. and i've gotten so much nice feedback and ppl wondering about other pods sO!  
> This is the main fic, but I will be writing a few more fics, some standalone, some will be required to read after this one.  
> The daisuga fic will be first after I finish Shoreline, and it'll be about their past together + their pov's during the events of Shoreline. (it may be a oneshot, but it'll be very long if it is)
> 
> in total I'm planning to write Daisuga, Kiyoyachi, Iwaoi, Bokuaka, and Kyouhaba (possibly) for this au  
> And from there, i'll see if I'd like to do more, but im hoping to write those first!
> 
> Thank you for waiting so patiently as always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! ;w;


	6. Sawamura Daichi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait!! here it is :>

Kageyama knows something was amiss lately—he can’t pinpoint what, honestly, but he’s sure he’s sick. Or was starting to come down with something, anyway.  
It’s this weird feeling of longing that he isn’t used to—he always kept to himself, was always fine being alone. It was preferable, even. He never had an urge to get much closer to others, really, but He liked having friends people around him.

Maybe that’s why he felt odd. Everything had changed drastically within his life in the past week and something, and It’s not something he ever expected. Not with Hinata—A human, of all things. Or even Yachi. He didn’t expect to get close to people like them, because getting close to people wasn’t something he was used to. 

He doesn’t know if the feeling is a good feeling or not, but it’s a heavy feeling in his chest that he can’t exactly pinpoint. He feels on the edge of his seat, excited to go see Hinata that night—which wasn’t unusual, he felt like that every night lately, not that he’d admit it. But it was somehow different.

It probably started when Hinata had hugged him, as weird as it sounded. 

He didn’t prefer physical contact unless necessary, but he didn’t really mind when Hinata hugged him. So that meant he was probably sick. Probably.

He’s lying back down against a rock near his home and rotating the somewhat-heavy volleyball keychain in his fingers, tracing the curves and scratching at the unfading paint when he hears a throat clear behind him. He jumps, Shoving the charm violently under a nearby stone and rolling to make eye contact with Yachi, who somehow snuck up on him. All the fish that were floating harmlessly around him scattered, darting off like lightning in different directions. He glares at her.

“Sorry, did I scare you?” she asks, hands fumbling together as she tried a wobbly smile. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t scare me, it’s fine.” He grunts, hoping she won’t make a comment on it as he huffs a silent breath of relief. “So what did you need?” He asks, sitting up and curling his tail around in the sand. She smiles more confidently, and floats down beside him, curling up on the sand across from him as well. He pokes a crab who’s getting awkwardly close to pinching his tail, and shoos it in the other direction as he waits for her to continue talking to him.

“So I told Daichi what I told you I would—that you were exploring farther off every day, nothing big. He didn’t really believe me.”

Kageyama flinches, eyes boring hard onto hers with nerves. “So He knows?”

She waves her hands in front of her, shaking her head like crazy. He’s surprised she doesn’t get whiplash like that. “No, No! Of course I didn’t tell. I just sort of…sold the story with something else.”

Recognition flits through his eyes and he slouches, bringing a palm to his face. “You told him the shark thing, didn’t you?”

Her eyes go sympathetic, and she smiles sadly. “Sorry. At least Tsukishima won’t find out, and it’s better than him learning about Hinata, right? It’s not like you really hunted sharks, anyway.”

“But he totally thinks I did,” Kageyama groans, hands still clutched around his face. Leave it to Yachi to actually tell the most embarrassing story—him, hunting _sharks_ of all things! The only reason to feel embarrassed was because it was downright stupid to hunt them, since they were their biggest enemies. The only ones who deliberately went looking for sharks to fight were only doing it to look tough, or try and gain more power, and show it off like a trophy. The worse part was that it was probably totally believable that he’d try it. “Did he believe you after you added that part?” Kageyama asks.

“Yeah, but I told him not to ever mention it, I’m sure you’ll be fine! He won’t bring it up now.”

“That’s _worse._ ” He hisses, closing his eyes and flopping back onto the sand, which puffed up into a cloud around his body, as he sunk deeper. He wishes the sand would part ways fully and swallow him up, at this rate. He could feel the blush on his cheeks. He wouldn’t ever live this down, and Tsukishima would not find out. Not if he had anything to do with it. And if he did, Kageyama would just beat the information out of his skull until he doesn’t remember. 

“I really am sorry!” she says, swimming up closer. “At least he won’t know about Hinata this way, right?” she asks, eyes searching his as he finally looks at her. 

It wasn’t preferable, and if anyone found out they would surely be dead by the next day, but it was probably better than the alternative, which was Daichi finding out they were both lying about what they’ve been doing, and sneaking around behind his back.

Forget himself—he didn’t want to drag Yachi down into this mess if it went south, especially when he was the one who begged her not to tell anyone. If he was caught along the way, he wanted to make sure Yachi didn’t take the fault, too. She didn’t deserve that. And if that meant having a very embarrassing story being told to save both of them—he was okay with it. 

“It’s fine.” He replies.

“You sure?”

“If it worked, that’s all that matters, right? He believed you.”

“I guess. But that doesn’t mean from now on I won’t clear things up with you first!” she says, scrambling back as Kageyama sits up again.

“It’s okay, really.” He snorts, amused at her nervous reactions. “You’re already doing a lot for me already. Thank you.”

She blinks, looking away with a light blush at the sincerity of the words.

“It’s no problem—I like Hinata too, you know? I expected humans to all be a certain way, but it was kind of a shock to even interact with him.” She sighs, running a hand through her shoulder length hair, pulling out invisible knots as she weaved her fingers through the golden strands. “I mean, I just imagined them a lot differently. I didn’t even know they could even smile like that—from the way we talk of them, they seem rotten to the core. I’ve always been so scared to see one myself, that I just hid in the shadows and took other people’s interpretations, but…” She trails off, a fond smile on her face. “I’m glad you convinced me to go talk to one. To talk to him. So I should be thanking _you._ ”

He sighs. “Don’t act like I didn’t do it to save my own hide, here. I needed you on my side.” 

“I already knew that.” she smiles.

It’s not silent for long before Yachi pipes up again, this time a tone implying mischief as a long “So, then,” rolls off her tongue, followed by: “Are you excited to see Hinata? You’ve been sighing since last night.” 

“I think I’m sick or something,” He mutters, shrugs.

“Sick? With what? There hasn’t been a virus going around through the pod in ages.”

“How should I know? I’ve just felt… anxious, I guess.” 

Yachi smiles knowingly before pointing to the rock he shoved the keychain under. “I saw what you did there. Did Hinata give it to you?”

“This?” he asks, giving up on trying to hide anything and pulling it out from under the stone, passing it to Yachi’s outstretched hand. She fawns over it for a moment, squinting and looking at it closely before handing it back to Kageyama. “What does it mean? For humans, I mean. Do you know?”

“Not a clue.” Kageyama shrugs. “I don’t think they’re useful for anything, though. I saw something similar on his ‘phone’ The other night.”

“Does he always give you gifts like this?” She asks, head tilted, eyes questioning. “And what’s a… _‘phone’_?”

“It’s a little box that can apparently contact people from far away. I don’t really understand it, but he also said they play games on it. I don’t really know how, though.” He ignores the look of awe on her face, and carries on. “And yeah—I guess so, anyway. He gave me flowers that he found on a mountain trail, and some food he bought from the nearby town.” He shrugs, and Yachi’s eyes positively light up.

“Did you give him stuff in return?” She snickers, and he shrugs.

“Yeah, I gave him some seashells since he was looking for some for his sister, once.”

“for his sister?”

“Yeah.”

“You should give _him_ something then, right?” she smiles, “And I’ve got just the thing!” she says, holding a finger up indicating for him to wait a moment, as she swims off in another direction. 

She’s back within a few moments, arms full of small, perfect shells and colourful string. Along with some coral, and other small, polished stones she most likely found on the seafloor.

“Where’d you get the string?” 

“You’d be surprised what humans carry on those sunken ships. I don’t like a lot of the things they do, but some things they make are surprisingly useful.”

He nods, and looks at the stuff she lays onto the sand. “And these are for…?”

“You should make him something!”

He scowls at her. “What am I, a girl?”

She throws him an angry pout, and it’s possibly the angriest he’s ever seen her—even if it was the farthest thing from intimidating. “Just make something for him! If it’s from you, He’ll like it, right?”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

“I am.” She smiles, and Kageyama feels like he might be missing something, but shrugs anyway, and gets comfortable, as he starts winding threads together under Yachi’s instruction.

~

He spends his morning looking through phonebooks and looking at names, trying to find ‘Sawamura Daichi’ anywhere, But comes up with nothing.

Time seems to fly, and before he knows it, his grandfather is calling him outside to help him start up the boat.

As the engine roars to life as they hop onto the boat, and Natsu cheers, tugging along a basket half her size onto the dock with great difficulty. Hinata holds out his free hand that’s not already lugging around multiple bags, offering to take it from her, but she shakes her head, and carries on, determined.

They’re rushing out into the blue sea several minutes later, Natsu cheering as the boat bounced along the waves and carried them further away from shore. It was a little amazing, how blue and dark the water was. A little unnerving too, when you knew what was out there. But also comforting, in a strange way. He knew Kageyama was somewhere out there as well.

They stop the boat a good distance out and his sister doesn’t look like his sister any longer, but instead resembles a puffer fish. She’s got a large blow-up donut around her waist and water wings bigger than her head. To top the look off, she’s got the scuba gear to go with it, large goggles on her face and duck-like flippers on her feet.

“Are you going swimming?”

“Duh,” she smiles, climbing down the ladder at the back of the boat. 

“Be safe,” he advises, and joins his grandfather up at the front of the boat, as they watch Natsu splash in the water close by from.

He’s standing beside his grandfather for only a few moments when he remembers what he wanted to ask him in the first place.

“Oh! Can I ask you something?” he asks, and his grandfather turns to him to give his full attention.

“What is it, Shouyou?”

“It’s nothing big but,” He rambles, not knowing how to ask. It was such a weird thing to ask. “I was wondering if you knew any residents in the town named ‘Sawamura Daichi’?” 

His grandfather hums thoughtfully, eyes crinkling under the sun and pursing his lip. “You know, I don’t think I have heard that name before. It doesn’t ring any bells, anyway.” He says. “Sorry, Shouyou. Why’d you want to know?”

He feels his hope take a plummet to the ground. 

“It’s nothing, really! Just…one of my friends said that such a person might be living here, and I wanted to find him, if it was possible…”

His grandfather gives him a small smile. “I’m sure you’ll find him, Shouyou. This isn’t a big town, and if he’s still living here, chances are you’ll find something.” He snaps his fingers in an epiphany, and points to Shouyou. “If you want, I can drive you to the town when we get back? Maybe you could take your questions there.”

“Yes, please!” He asks without hesitation. 

The rest of the afternoon is filled with splash fights and fishing, snacking on watermelon and drinking fruit flavoured water to keep hydrated. They even catch a few fish, too.

His grandfather drives him out right after they grill up the fish for an early dinner, and He tells Shouyou he’ll pick him up when he calls. He thanks his grandfather sincerely, and is on his way to see what he can find out before the sun sets.

It feels like luck is on his side when he starts off. He feels like he’ll find the answer for sure—after all, his grandfather was probably right. If there was a citizen in the small town, they couldn’t be that hard to find, right?

_Wrong._

He’s going up and down streets, asking people as he passes them if they’d known someone under the name. Eventually he was directed to the Town hall—which he thought would be able to help him, but only carried the names of the current residents of the town. Which meant the guy moved at some point if he was ever there, like Suga had mentioned he might have.

He asks around a bit more, without much luck. By the end of his trip, he’s hunched over and exhausted by a water fountain while waiting to be picked up.

If anything, he was only more curious to find out where this guy was. Who was Suga friends with? A criminal? A mastermind who knew how to change town records? He knows the guy might’ve been someone who didn’t stand out much, but he figured someone in the town would have at least heard his name, and he’d talked to plenty of citizens at that point. And nobody knew a thing about Sawamura Daichi.

His grandfather gives him a sympathetic look from the car as he opens the passenger seat door, and Hinata huffs out a sigh as they drive home.

Kageyama was his last hope on this one.

~

When he swims up to Hinata, he tries his best to keep his pace even, and not swim up to Hinata in a rush that would bring a big wave in with him. _Chill out,_ he tells himself.

“Kageyama!” Hinata calls from shore, smiling and waving, and Kageyama can’t help but pick up the pace after that.

He approaches, and Hinata makes himself comfortable on the sand like usual, and Kageyama settles in close to him. It’s like he’s instantly at ease, just hearing his voice and being close to him, and he almost groans in irritation at himself. Yep. He’s definitely sick.

“How is Yachi? Did anything happen?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “She’s fine—she didn’t tell anyone that she saw you. She…covered for me to come here tonight, actually.” Hinata smiles at that, and Kageyama blinks and looks away from his eyes. “She might come by sometime though. Do you mind?”

“Not at all!”

They catch up with one another, falling into a lengthy conversation with ease. They start with what happened after Kageyama left, and What Yachi’s reactions were to meeting Hinata and about the whole issue of being around a human in general—and also how she decided to not tell anyone about any of it; Hinata knew he liked her for a reason, and he only liked her more now, if possible.

“Bring her around again, Kageyama.”

“Alright.” He replies easily. _I don’t think I have a choice, anyway. She’ll probably follow me at some point on her own._

“Oh,” Kageyama interrupts before Hinata can butt in, and grabs at the overused pouch at his waist. He sticks his hand in and grabs something, but glares at Hinata before showing it to him.

“Don’t make fun of me, Okay?”

“I won’t, promise.” Hinata says, hands up in surrender. And with a quick look to the side, he adds, “maybe.”

It’s not reassuring, but Kageyama only grumbles. “Close your eyes, stupid.” And when Hinata does so without hesitation, he really wonders if he’s been hanging out with an idiot. _Who trusts someone 100% like that?_ It was a little flattering in a way too, though—not like he’d say it.

He hesitantly tugs at Hinata’s arm, facing his wrist up. He peeks up to make sure Hinata’s not looking—and he’s not; instead, he’s clenching his eyelids shut much harder than necessary, and Kageyama rolls his eyes, but reaches outward to tie the bracelet on Hinata’s wrist anyway.  
It wasn’t that embarrassing, but he mumbles a quick, “you can open your eyes now.” Before sinking half below the waters’ surface in wait of a reaction.

Hinata’s eyes snap open and he’s instantly smiling, flipping the bracelet around by rotating his arm. His dazzling smile is directed at the bracelet—then Kageyama, as he asks, “You made this?”

“..Yeah.” he mumbles, watching as Hinata looked it over carefully, the blue-ish green twine tangling securely through a few small shells. 

“Yachi helped me make it.” He mumbles, a bit shy as he watched Hinata smile at the thing so endearingly. It was just a bracelet, but it really took away from Kageyama’s embarrassment to see the other so happy about it.

“That doesn’t surprise me, I didn’t think you would do something like this on your own, anyway.” He shakes his head, laughing lightly. “Thank you for it, though. I love it.”

Kageyama grumbles something, and Hinata interrupts with a loud, “Oh!” that makes him jump a bit. 

“I had something to ask you!” Hinata declares, quite loudly, and points accusingly in his direction. Kageyama goes cross-eyed to watch the finger threateningly close to his nose.

“One of my friends used to live around this area, and he was looking for someone—an old friend, I think—but I didn’t have much luck looking for him and I spent most of the day looking for this guy,” He huffs. “I actually don’t know if the guy still lives here or not, and though my friend did encourage me not to search him out, I was still a bit curious, and after asking literally everyone in the town nearby, I haven’t been able to come across any sign of him yet, which is a little weird, right? and—“

“Get to the point.” He commands.

“Sorry,” Hinata laughs. “It’s been a long day, and I sort of gave up hope, but I was wondering… do you happen to float around the beaches nearby, too? Ones with people on it?”

“…Sometimes I do,” he mutters. “Why.” It came out like a demand.

“Do you ever hear people drop names or anything?”

“I don’t get _that_ close.”

“Oh,” Hinata says, slumping forward. “That’s too bad. I was kind of hoping you might have heard of the guy I was looking for by chance. Since you’ve been here a while, I guess I figured…”

He doesn’t like seeing the sad kicked puppy expression on Hinata, and it starts to make him feel bad. He sighs. “…Who were you looking for?” Even if he couldn’t help, confirmation didn’t hurt, and he didn’t feel good about dropping the subject on a vague answer.

“I was looking for this guy… His name’s Sawamura Daichi. Friend of a friend, I guess.” He shrugs. “I’ve been looking for the guy all day, and nothing.” He kicks his feet, muttering. “You’d think the guy didn’t exist or something.”

Kageyama had been rooted to the spot, blood draining from his face. Hinata was slow, but not that slow, and he notices the long silence, and looks up from the waves, and looks questioningly to Kageyama’s alarmed face.

“Hey! What’s wrong?”

“Did you just say… Sawamura Daichi?”

“Yeah, Why?” he tilts his head. His eyes go a little wide as he infiltrates Kageyama’s bubble of personal space. “Wait. Do you _know_ him?!”

He doesn’t even know what to say. How did Hinata know of Daichi? He’d never slip the name—he knows he hasn’t, not yet anyway. Even if he did for Tsukishima, he’s certain he didn’t speak a word about his pod leader to Hinata. He would have remembered that. He knows he would have remembered that.

He doesn’t know what to feel, so when Hinata reaches forward to touch him, he backs away. Hinata looks worried, but he’s a little too stunned to take it in at the moment.

“How do you know about him?” He asks, a little fearful. Scared, even. _How would Hinata have gotten his name?_ “How do you know about him, Hinata?”

Hinata blinks, face frozen in utter shock at he looks at Kageyama, blinking a few times. “Did I say something wrong? I don’t know who he is, Kageyama, that’s why I asked you. Obviously.”

Hinata couldn’t have been hunting them down, right? But where would he have gotten that name? How could he have known about him when Daichi never even went to the surface unless it was necessary, much less give his name out. Was he spying, or something? Was he _lying_ to Kageyama this whole time?

He forces himself to take a deep breath and stop jumping to stupid conclusions. He knew Hinata. He _trusted_ him.

“Who is your friend?” He asks, serious.

“Sugawara Koushi is his name,” Hinata breathes. “What’s wrong, Kageyama? You’re scaring me right now.”

Kageyama didn’t know anyone by that name. He couldn’t ask Daichi who that was for confirmation—he’d figure out Kageyama was sneaking around. But he didn’t know if he really trusted Hinata right now, either. He felt conflicted and totally lost. 

“I—sorry, Hinata, really.” He replies, trying to take a deep breath. 

Hinata jumps into the water, backing Kageyama up into a corner, quite literally. before he can try to escape Hinata grabs hold of Kageyama’s hand, and the charm bracelet clacks against his wrist. He had an urgent look in his eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong—do you know him, or something?”

“I—yeah.” He replies lamely, nodding out of sync with his answer. “He’s someone really important to me...” he doesn’t know whether to keep spilling information like this or not, but he’s not even sure he can trust Daichi at the moment. So he keeps talking. “He’s the leader of our pod. I just don’t know how your friend would have known him…” his look hardens. “You’re not lying about this, right?”

Hinata looks equally angered. “Of course not! He’s from my school volleyball team, but he said he had a friend who lived here. I asked what his name was, and he said Sawamura Daichi was his friends’ name, so I’m just as confused as you are here!” he fidgets, still clasping Kageyama’s hand to make sure he didn’t swim away, or just out of his reach. 

“Maybe it’s a different Daichi?” Hinata suggests, but even he looks doubtful.

Kageyama didn’t know what to say or do. If Hinata wasn’t lying—and by the way he was reacting to this new information, Kageyama assumed he wasn’t in fact, lying—what did it all mean? Was Daichi lying to him? To their pod? The man hated humans, much less got to know one, as far as he knew. Was this the reason he hated them so much?

“Hinata, did your say anything else about him?” 

Hinata stops to think for a moment before moving away from Kageyama, up and out of the water with a mumbled, “hold on,” as he searched through his backpack, pulling out the ‘phone’ again.

He touches the front of the object for a while, the light of the thing highlighting his face in the dark, and Kageyama waits until he speaks up again.

“Not much… he was pretty vague about his friend, honestly.” he says, scrolling through the messages. “He said that Daichi ‘liked to avoid towns and other populated places, for one” he snorts. “If we’re talking about the same Daichi, that would definitely explain that…” he trails off.

“Oh.” He stops scrolling.

“What?”

“He said that they parted on bad terms, but I didn’t think much of it, I guess. I thought they just had a fight.”

“Oh.” _Oh. _It suddenly clicks another piece of the puzzle, and Kageyama has a sinking feeling in his gut that they were both talking about the same guy.__

__Daichi didn’t like talking about humans at all, if he could avoid it, and that might explain a few things—if he had a human friend at one point and their relationship turned sour._ _

__“Shit.” Kageyama says._ _

__“Do you think he’s talking about the same person?” Hinata asks._ _

__“Yeah, I—“ He takes a deep breath. “It probably is the Daichi I know. If your friend ‘Suga’ says they parted on bad terms, that could explain a lot of things.”_ _

__“Like?”_ _

__“Daichi hates humans, for one.”_ _

__“Oh.” Hinata replies, lamely. His eyes widen again like he reaches an epiphany. “That’s why you’d be in trouble for hanging out with me, right?” he rubs his hands over his eyes. “This is so confusing.”_ _

__“Yeah.” Kageyama nods, still trying to process it all._ _

__The big question now was, what happened between those two? And why would Daichi keep secrets about that kind of thing? He was their leader, right? Was he giving them orders to avoid humans based on biased problems with the human he was friends with?_ _

__He knew he was being a hypocrite—He was friends with a human himself after all, but it was a little different when the person telling them how terrible humans were was someone who had apparently befriended one on his own._ _

__If he was hiding something like this, what else did he keep quiet about?_ _

__He didn’t want to think about it anymore, it was giving him a headache._ _

__“Well this was…” Hinata trails off quietly, searching for words. “Enlightening, I guess. But I’m still a little lost. I mean how...”_ _

__Kageyama nods wordlessly, not knowing how to respond either._ _

__“Are you going to ask Daichi about it?”_ _

__“Hell no.” Kageyama responds in a heartbeat. “If I brought this up, he’d figure out about you, and that can’t happen.”_ _

__“So what should we do?”_ _

__He bites the inside of his cheek. “I’m not sure—I’m still trying to understand, but… I don’t know what to think.” He (and possibly all the others around him) we’re being lied to after all, if it was true._ _

__“I won’t bring it up with Suga, then. I guess.”_ _

__“I guess we just… keep it to ourselves, then? Who could we tell?”_ _

__“You could ask Yachi about it, right?”_ _

__“Maybe. I don’t know.”_ _

__Hinata looks at him. “Maybe we should go home for tonight, and think this over a bit? This was sort of just thrown at us out of nowhere, and I don’t know what to say.” Hinata shakes his head. “Suga. Being friends with a mermaid… And here I thought I was the one keeping secrets.” He smiles at the ridiculousness of it._ _

__“Alright.”_ _

__“You’ll come back, right?” Hinata asks, sounding a little nervous. Like the first time Kageyama left on the night they met._ _

“Of course,” he replies easily. _I don’t know who else I can trust right now, after all._

__“Okay.” Hinata smiles a little uneasily, but it’s real. He moves forward again before Kageyama can say another word, and hugs him loosely, like when they’d separated a few nights before. Kageyama stiffens at the touch, heartbeat accelerating wildly._ _

__“I’m sorry that we had to part like this,” Hinata sighs, pulling back from the hug and groaning. “When we see each other tomorrow, let’s have fun, okay? Or at least try to. I still wanted to go swimming with you outside of the tide pools, after all.” he gives Kageyama one more big smile, holding up his arm with the bracelet dangling around it. “And thank you for this—I’ll treasure it for sure.”_ _

__Kageyama waves as Hinata departs, still a little lost about the nights’ events, but he tries not to think about it too much._ _

__He also tries not to think about the way he was affected when Hinata was hugging him, but that was just as hard to ignore._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so Kageyama realized he was gay after only 2 hugs
> 
> Also this chapter was a little slower to write because i'm trying to piece together what I want to do with this story ( i already know how im ending it, but working up to that and making their relationship is the tough part for me ugh) and I didn't feel too inspired with this chapter so i'm sorry if it's a little bland or something??? I hope it's ok. If you see any mistakes, please tell me!! 
> 
> Also thank you for all the views and kudos on this story aldfjlkdsf and the comments on my story give me life so thank you for those <3
> 
> I'll try to keep updating as much as possible but now i might be having a part-time job now on top of school so things might take a bit of time to get out :( and I also wanted to start writing some other things, too!! ( I need more bokuaka and iwaoi in my life B)) ) so expect some other things posted from me soon, perhaps???
> 
> Thank you for all the support!
> 
> Until next chapter~ :D


	7. Guilt Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been 5ever im really sorry for not updating :C  
> More notes at the end, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!!!

He waits for Kageyama at their normal spot the following night, joints tight with anxiety as he soaks his legs in the ocean, watching the water move around his legs in a hypnotic pattern. 

The day had been a long one, and though he tried to think about something--anything else--it would just come back to him. Sugawara was friends with a mermaid. How on earth did that happen?

He stopped answering Suga’s texts, and went to bed with a heavy heart the night before when he read his nightly text and only closed his phone. He _could_ pretend everything was normal and reply back casually, but he didn’t even have the heart to talk to Suga. It’s not like he blames Suga for not telling him, either, because he was keeping Kageyama a secret from everyone just as well. He just didn’t know what to make of it, and now that he most likely knew the rest of the story, he was only that much more curious.

The whole day had been spent brooding over the same subject over and over, and wondering if Kageyama was ok. If _they_ were okay, really. He seemed to withdraw from him once he mentioned Daichi’s name, after all, and his eyes had gone slightly cold as he made a distance between them. 

He feels relaxation hit him like a wave when he sees Kageyama’s head pop up above the water's’ surface, and waves him down. _Thank Goodness._

“Did you wear your swimsuit?” Kageyama asks, looking him up and down once he’s up close. Swimming in the ocean was the plan for the night, after all.

“Yep!” Hinata gestures to his shorts, and jumps into the water, making Kageyama flinch from the stray water splashes.

“Idiot! Don’t jump into the shallows!”

“Are you worried about me, Kageyama-kun?” Hinata snickers, parting the soaked hair away from his eyes. “I know how to swim, you know.”

“Why would I worry about you,” Kageyama huffs, looking away. “Just don’t do that. You could hit your head or something.”

“I’ll be fine, Kageyama.” He says, nudging the other with his arm.

“...Alright then.”

“If you’re done worrying,” Hinata starts, paddling out to sea. ”Let’s go swimming!”

Kageyama nods, following him out until his tail didn’t brush the seafloor.

They swim for a while, splashing around and avoiding the elephant in the room. Even if Hinata had insisted they have some fun, it was hard to focus on relaxing when there was questions everywhere that needed answering. Eventually, they both settled down, floating on their backs to look at the stars.

“Hey, Kageyama.” Hinata started, breaking the silence and the distant hum of the cicadas over the waves.

Kageyama felt his heart speed up. “Yeah?”

“I stopped talking to Suga, you know. I don’t know what’s going on still, but I can’t tell him anything regarding you or Daichi. Do you have any idea of how they knew each other? Does Daichi keep any evidence around of him, maybe?”

Kageyama didn’t move from his spot, lightly flicking his tail to keep afloat as he watched the stars with wonder. He never looked at the stars, really. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t any of the mermaids do this? It was beautiful, really. 

“Not a clue,” He sighs. Here was the topic he was afraid of. “I’ve never heard the name Sugawara before this in my life, honestly.” _And it’s not like we keep pictures of each other on hand,_ he thinks bitterly. 

“Oh,” Hinata replies, and everything goes silent again.

Well, until Hinata decides to speak again.

“Kageyama.”

“ _What._ ” He practically hisses. 

“Are we still friends?”

_What?_

He blinks at that, and swims in an upright position to look at Hinata. 

“What would make you ask that?” he questions, and tries really hard not to sound annoyed. Obviously they were, so what did he mean?

“Last night you… Kind of looked startled when I mentioned Daichi, and you got all tense when I hugged you goodbye.” He sounded a bit sad. “I was wondering if you were going to show up tonight, honestly.”

_Oh._

He blinks. “I was surprised when you said it, yeah, but I wasn’t planning on not showing up.” His brows furrow. “It was just a bit… frightening to hear a human know something like that. I’ve just been trained to be wary of humans in general, specifically hunters.” 

“Hunters?”

“...There’s a lot of people dedicated to discovering and capturing merfolk for the sake of money.” He simply explains. It’s not like he’s run into any himself, but he’s heard stories. Horror stories and rumours about some of their kind lured away into traps by humans, never to be seen or heard from again. He repressed a shiver at the thought.

“Oh.” Hinata whispers. Then, “You know I’d never do anything like that, right?”

Kageyama smiles. “Yeah. I know.” 

And he did. Even if he was nervous for a moment, he doesn’t think he could do anything _but_ trust his short, joyful, human friend at this point. 

“Good.”

They part soon after that, both feeling equally less restless over the situation. 

As far as Kageyama knew from Hinata’s words, this “Sugawara” was once friends with a man named Daichi. He didn’t have much to go on, but if he wanted some answers, (which he did) he’d have to find them out for himself.

~

Swimming back to his own home was a lot more nerve-wracking now with the possibility of Daichi being around any corner. He was already hiding enough from Daichi, but now he didn't even want to see him when he knew about this discovery and that Daichi wasn’t being very honest with them, either. It’s more like he knows that if he looks Daichi in the eye, he’ll cave and start asking questions. And he’d like to avoid that, if possible.

His best bet is to ask about this “Sugawara” person. Probably.

It’s unlikely anyone else knew of this person, but he needed to ask someone if they’d ever hear the name before. He wasn’t exactly a born-member into their pod, he was only a recent addition--meaning if anyone knew anything, it’d be anyone close to Daichi. Maybe. If his hypothesis was somewhat right. 

 

But then again, if someone did know anything and reported back to Daichi about his curious questions--well, that would probably be bad.

It hits him like a ton of bricks, and he physically stops in his tracks with a new-found idea. He only hopes it’ll work, and changes his direction back to town.

~

“Kageyama! What a surprise to see you in here!” Daichi says, joyfully welcoming Kageyama into his home. 

“Yeah,” Kageyama mutters, swimming inside and hoping he doesn’t give away how awkward he feels just being there.

“So what’d you need?” Daichi asks.

This was a stupid plan. Dumb, and not very well thought out _stupid **stupid**_ _**STUPID**_ plan.

“I, ah, needed to borrow your hunting knife…” He trails off, looking around the dark, cave-like room for any sign of something made from human material, like the trinkets Hinata had given him. 

If Daichi and Sugawara were friends of some sort, wouldn’t it be normal for him to have something of his lying around? Maybe? But even if they gave each other gifts like Hinata and he did, who’s to say Daichi didn’t throw them away if they fought?

It occurs to Kageyama for the tenth time that this was a really stupid idea.

“My hunting knife?” Daichi asks. “Where’d yours go?”

“uh… dropped it.”

“Dropped it? Where?”

“Uhm. kelp forest.”

“And you couldn’t find it in there at all…?” Daichi’s brows furrow, seeming a little unbelieving of the story.

“Yep.” Kageyama retorts, mostly speechless.

they stare at each other for a few long seconds, Kageyama straining just to maintain eye contact with him. Eventually, Daichi just shrugs. and swims over to a large rock where his supplies lie.

“Alright, I guess so. But I want it back, yeah? You know how to make one, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

Daichi lifts a large stone up, where all his valuables seem to lie. Kageyama looks across at them. Knife, bag, and a few other essentials, but nothing human-related or synthetic or even _colorful_ at all. 

Daichi hands the knife over, but still seems a little lost and confused as to why Kageyama was there. But before he can say another word on Kageyama fishy behaviour, He announces his leave.

“Thanks Daichi. Bye,” He breathes out, barely looking back before he darts out of the house.

~

It really was a dumb plan after all. Even if he _did_ find evidence of the information Hinata had given him, it was all pointless, wasn’t it? He already _knew_ Daichi was friends with a man named Sugawara. It all just… connected. He was probably just in denial. 

So the only logical thing to do now was ask instead of beating around the bush for who knows how long.

“Yachi,” He starts, only hoping this won’t be a mistake to ask someone close to Daichi. There was always the possibility of her bringing it up with the pod leader himself, but what choice did he have?

“Yes, Kageyama?” she asks, putting her knife in the sheath at her hip. “What is it?”

“I… need to ask you something.” He gulps. “Something kind of important.”

“Alright…” She blinks. “What’s got you so troubled?”

“It’s… about Daichi.”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you still worried about me telling him that thing with the shark? Because I’m pretty sure he’s dropped it--”

“No, It’s not that,” He huffs, cutting her off. “It’s about...him in general. How much do you know about him?”

She eyes him carefully. “...Well, depends what you want to know? I don’t know him that well personally, to be honest. I just talk to him occasionally. Why?”

He pauses for a moment, and then-- “Was he ever a friend with a human in the past?”

“What?” She chokes out, startling the fish swimming by, making them dart of in different directions. She looks around briefly, before swimming up close and bringing her voice down to a hushed whisper. “What makes you ask me that?”

“Well, Hinata may have told me some… things…” He holds the bridge of his nose. “It’s going to sound crazy, actually.”

She looks a little alarmed, but nods. “It’s okay, just tell me.”

And so he does. It doesn’t come out smoothly or easily, but he gets the point across. She floats across from him after he tells her with large, thoughtful eyes.

“I don’t really think it’s possible? I mean, I’ve never heard the name Sugawara before, I haven’t been here long enough…” she ponders out loud, but doesn’t deny the possibility. Then she gasps, pointing to Kageyama with a big smile. “You know, Asahi-san or Kiyoko-san would probably know! They’ve known him _forever_ ,” she says, dragging the word ‘forever’ out. “If anybody would know, it’s them.”

“Are you sure?” Kageyama asks.

“Definitely. If you don’t want to ask though, I could for you. I talk to Kiyoko-san all the time, it wouldn’t be weird, I’m sure.”

Kageyama manages a small smile at that. “Thanks, Yachi. That would help.” _Probably, or just make things worse,_ he adds to himself.

They go back to hunting after that, and part when the moon rises.

~

“Kageyama, You’re late~” Is the first thing to grace Kageyama’s ears when he surfaces close to their meeting spot. He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t deny it.

“Sorry, I was hunting late with Yachi.”

“That’s okay.” Hinata hums, kicking his feet through the water happily like a toddler, as usual. But he seems a bit different tonight. The bags are a little deeper under his eyes. Kageyama’s brows furrow as he reaches out to touch the skin under Hinata’s eye.

“What is it?” Hinata asks with a small jolt, watching Kageyama intently. 

“Are you sick?” Kageyama asks, poking at the deeper colored skin and smoothing it out under his scaly fingers.

Hinata seems to catch on, and laughs. “What? No, silly. Just tired. Natsu woke up super early today--even earlier than my grandfather, and I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Sorry,” Kageyama murmurs, feeling partly responsible.

“It’s fine. I’m not going to leave earlier because of it, or anything. I was excited to see you!” He smiles, and Kageyama tries to stop the stutter of his heart, failing majorly.

“Dumbass,” he mutters quietly, but it’s fond, if anything.

“So,” Hinata starts, casually leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. It’s never bothered Kageyama before, but had he always been this close when they talk? “What did you do today?”

“Nothing much,” He says, unable to meet Hinata’s bright and curious eyes. He knew Hinata was stupid, and definitely couldn’t tell any difference in behaviour, but those eyes were just so intense and bright sometimes--far too much to _look_ into.

“That’s good! All i did was play a bunch of board games with my grandfather and Natsu, which is probably the quietest thing we did all summer, really.” He sighs. “I was really excited to go fishing again, but then Grandpa’s boat broke down--”

Kageyama starts fading out of the conversation, instead just watching Hinata’s mouth move.

until he hears the word “leave”

“What?” Kageyama asks, head snapping up in a second.

“I’m leaving here at the end of summer,” He repeats with a pout. “I wasn’t really excited about coming here in the beginning since I wanted to spend the summer with my friends, but then met you.” His eyes almost sparkled as he smiles again. “I’m glad I came out here for that alone. Even if it’s only at night time, I’m happy to see you. I’m glad we became friends!”

Kageyama might have been touched if he wasn’t horrified. How hadn’t he realised it sooner?

“You’re leaving?” He asks, unbelief lining his tone.

“I live a lot farther away, I told you that, right?” His smile is sad. “I forgot I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.” As if for consolation, he adds: “But I’ll still be here for over two weeks, you know!”

Kageyama grits his teeth as his lips go into a fine line. He feels angry at Hinata, but he knows he can’t be. He should have known that Hinata wasn’t moving here or already permanently placed here. That was his own fault for a misunderstanding. He was only a teenage human, after all, right? He couldn’t live on his own, either. Humans were like that, depending on their family until they were old enough. 

Kageyama should have known that. He should have known, but the facts and the realisation hits him all at once and he sinks a little lower into the water.

“Oh.”

It’s silent after that, until Hinata flicks water at him from his spot on the shore. Kageyama glares up at the red-headed boy.

“Don’t be like that,” Hinata says, frowning too. “We still have time together, and it’s not like I can’t visit you, right? You said yourself you’d be staying here for a while.”

 _But I’ll miss you,_ he doesn’t want to say. and instead sighs, letting the anger drain out of him with a heavy breath. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good,” Hinata says, smiling again. 

The winds are chilly that night, and even though Hinata insists it’s fine for swimming, Kageyama can see the shivers wracking his body and bumps lining his skin from the t-shirt. It’s not windy, but his legs are dangling in the water, and Kageyama slaps at them until he takes them out and lies down onto the land again.

They end up there for a while, just staring at the sky like they had done the night before. The waters may have been a little cooler, but the sky was certainly clear, the inky galaxy and stars shining brightly through the cloudless night.

“Do you know anything about constellations, Kageyama?”

“What are those?”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Hinata snorts, pointing to a cluster of stars above their heads. 

“It’s like connecting the dots and making a picture with the stars,” he says. “Kind of like cloud watching? Except there's specific ones and they rotate around the sky depending on the time of year and such, but you can spot them pretty easily.” 

He traces one out for Kageyama with his index finger. “See? There’s cygnus.”

“And that’s supposed to be…?”

“I don’t know. looks like a bird. Probably.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?” Kageyama huffs.

“I know enough," He insists.

They go through a few more, Kageyama pointing to certain clusters and asking if those ones were anything, with hinata saying yes or no. Eventually, they just started pointing to shapes and trying to make pictures of their own, going back and forth. Until Hinata didn’t reply.

“Hinata?” Kageyama asked, sitting up from his floating position to look at the other.

Hinata was completely asleep on the sand, an arm pulled up on his chest and his head tilted to the side as he snored lightly, almost completely silent.

“Dumbass,” Kageyama scolds, swimming up to the side of the tidepool to clutch onto land. “You should have just went home if you were tired…”

And although he says that, he can’t stop himself from creepily watching the other sleep, head tilting to the side as he watched Hinata’s chest rise up and down with calm breaths, and his fluttering eyelashes and slightly parted lips. It’s probably the quietest Kageyama’s ever seen him.

Somehow, he ended up almost face to face with the boy, leaning in close to hear his breaths and watch him.

Hinata was really cute, and Kageyama needed to wake him up before he did something really stupid. Like lay down next to him , or something.

He flicks Hinata’s forehead instead, causing him to wake with a jump and a yip.

“Go home if you’re tired.” 

“I’m not, though!” Hinata insists.

Kageyama gives him a deadpan stare.

“Okay fine, I’m a bit tired.” He whines a bit at the end, standing up and stretching. “See you tomorrow, I guess?” He asks, grabbing his backpack and turning.

Kageyama frowns. He was almost expecting a hug. How stupid.

“What?” Hinata asks.

“...Nothing. See you tomorrow.”

A small pause follows, and then Hinata breaks out into a smile as he falls forward to the ground, right in front of Kageyama and _damn, Hinata figured it out--_

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Hinata says, pulling him in close and squeezing the life out of him before Kageyama can say any harsh words back. Then he’s waving and tumbling through the forest, being sucked into the shadows of the trees.

Kageyama belatedly feels his face flush a deep crimson from his thoughts alone. 

Seriously? was he seriously that flustered just from _looking_ at him sleeping? and He almost wanted to lie down next to him. How embarrassing. And he can still picture Hinata’s face like a stamp in his mind, too.

It occurs to Kageyama with a quick touch to his warm cheeks that he might be _doomed._

~

Hinata walks along the beach with a slight skip in his step, although tired. He suppresses a yawn at the sight of the house and quietly sneaks into it, closing his eyes as he hears the small unavoidable creak of the door.

He tiptoes past his grandfather’s room and sneaks back into his own, ready to curl up for a long, long sleep.

That is, until he finds his phone under the covers. He’s ready to toss it aside, or put it in a drawer just so he doesn’t see it. These feeling only double when he sees a notification of a text from Sugawara. 

He doesn’t want to read it. There’s probably a pile of messages from him, now, considering Hinata ignored all of them for the last few nights. Suga probably knew _he knew_ something. But guilt pulls at him, and he opens the messages. He doesn’t know if he could get himself to answer, but he reads them regardless.

**From: Sugawara (Yesterday, 1:25pm)  
>Are you alright? You haven’t been Answering your messages.**

**From: Sugawara (Yesterday, 3:15pm)  
>You might just be busy, but text me back when you can, okay? I’m a bit worried.**

He feels bad for ignoring him, but scrolls on to the next one.

**From: Sugawara (Today, 12:42am)  
>Did you find Daichi, Hinata?**

He doesn’t want to answer.

He takes in a quick breath, trying to calm his shaky hands as he sends one text back.

**To:Sugawara (1:37am)  
** Sorry about not replying! Natsu took my phone and hid it, so I couldn’t text you back...  
I haven’t seen Daichi yet, sorry :C 

He hopes it sounds somewhat Natural, and hits send and tosses it off the side of the bed into his bag. He wasn’t _totally_ lying, he tells himself.

After all, he hadn’t seen Daichi once for himself. He’s not sure he wants to, with him hating humans--according to Kageyama.

He pushes his face into his pillow and ignores the knowing beep of his phone. He pushes the pillows further into his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while of not updating this fic and im super sorry about that :C  
> I'm not sure if it seems im pushing Kageyama's affections a bit fast, but I plan to wrap this fic up in 2 or 3 more chapters, actually. Then after that, it's going to be the companion fic focusing on daichi/suga!!
> 
> Then i'm probably going to write the BokuAka mermaid au next, since I really REALLY need to write some BokuAka and i havent yet booo
> 
> I had major writers block for half of this and it took me like a month to actually get words out rip me  
> I hope you enjoyed? If you did, please kudos and comment, it makes my day!!


	8. Secrets Revealed

It’s been almost three weeks since Hinata and him met. Three weeks since they’ve been meeting almost every night, and he’s been leaving the pod at night--he can feel Daichi’s intense stare on his back now and again, even though he was acting much less suspicious than he used to. He also knows that the summer is ending. Maybe not yet--but the air was almost getting colder, and by his judgement, it’s usually around the time the warm season starts fading out and the trees die and the fish start swimming away in search of food until the warm seasons come back.

It leaves him a little antsy, knowing his time with Hinata will definitely be over soon, but he doesn’t know what to say--or what to do. He’s never had a human friend before, never even thought he would have one. He wasn’t sure what to do once Hinata left. Everything he did before meeting Hinata seems like a blur, and he’s not sure what he did to fill his days up before this. It leaves a pit in his stomach, to say the least.

“Kageyama?”

His head snaps toward Yachi, who looks vaguely worried, and he remembers that he’s having lunch with the whole pod and all he’s been doing is _staring_ at the tuna in his hands for a solid five minutes, lost in thought.

“I’m sorry,” He starts. “I’m just a bit restless.”

Her smile is warm with relief. “That’s ok. It’s understandable, considering the events of recently. Not to mention, you didn’t come back until the early hours of the morning last night,” She giggles. “Did you have fun?”

“Say it a little louder, will you?” He hisses out in a scolding tone, jabbing her with his elbow. She laughs at him--jokes and innuendo’s flying over his head, as usual.

“Nobody knows where you went--nobody even knows you left last night as far as I can tell. I told them you were at home, not feeling well.”

he sighs in relief. “Thanks.”

It was nice, having Yachi to cover his back like this. In his old pod, there was nobody he could even talk to freely, much less rely on them for protecting his secrets. It was an eye opener having Yachi around--if she was this trustworthy, maybe other members of the pod would be fine with this, too. Not that he wanted to tell everyone about Hinata yet. He’d take this one step at a time. 

He feels the pit come back into his chest when he realises he won’t even _need_ to keep this a secret for much longer; He’ll be gone by then.

 

“Kageyama?” 

He blinks. “Yeah?” He had gotten lost in thought again.

“I’m gonna ask Kiyoko about--” she lowers her voice, leaning in close “--Sugawara. I’m gonna ask her about him today.”

He audibly swallows, but nods. “Okay.”

“That’s fine with you?”

He nods. “Yep. Just make sure you have her alone before you ask her anything though.”

“Oh,” Yachi smiles shyly. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem. We always go for these nightly strolls through the sea, and usually find these amazing places when we swim aimlessly. It’s always just the two of us, so I’ll wait until we’re far out of the way of possibly being caught before I bring it up.”

He nods. “Sounds good.”

He goes back to his meal, lost in thought.

~

Things had become slightly awkward with him and Hinata as of lately. 

They were both avoiding the metaphorical elephant in the room, because the fact was understood between them both that Hinata would be leaving in a little over a week, and they didn’t know when they could see each other next.

He was only there for the summer, and how could he convince his parental guardian that the reason he needed to go back to his grandfather’s beach was because he made friends with a mermaid?

He’s startled out of the negative stream of thought when Hinata pokes him in the forehead from his spot, lying on his stomach in the sand. Kageyama frowned, eyebrows furrowing at the action.

“What?”

“I want to ask something.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“When I met you, I asked about your family, but you didn’t tell me a thing,” Hinata hums, and Kageyama gulps, because he _really didn’t want to talk about this yet_ \-- “but where are they? What are they like?” He seems to see Kageyama’s hesitation and quickly adds, “If you want to, of course! I just thought… because when I first met you, you seemed uncomfortable with it, but that might’ve been because you didn’t know me yet, so I wasn’t sure...You don’t have to tell me, though…”

He wasn’t exactly _ready_ to talk about it yet, but… “It’s fine. I’ll tell you.” He sighed, swishing his tails in the water nervously, trying to find his words.

Hinata nodded, eyes wide with interest as he pushed up his cheeks while leaning on his hands. 

“I told you that merfolk don’t really _have_ families, but that’s not exactly true. We have the rest of our pod, and that’s who we rely on. no parental figures stick around, it’s usually just the eggs that hatch learn to survive on their own. They learn to survive and form a… sort of family, together.”

Hinata nods. “So the people you’re with now is your family?”

“...Sort of.” 

“So they aren’t…?”

He sighs. _Here goes nothing._ “I used to travel with another pod, but they abandoned me when I was young.” There. He said it.

He waits for the shame to hit him like a ton of bricks again, or for Hinata to laugh at him like Oikawa probably would, telling him he deserved that one. But all Hinata does is visibly slumps at that, eyes darting to the ground, turning sad. “Oh.” 

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pestered you to tell me that.”

“It’s fine.” It’s _not_ , but he wasn’t mad at Hinata for it, obviously. Even now, he could still see the curiosity linger in Hinata’s eyes, and continues. “It was when I was a lot younger, anyway.” he huffs, trying to find the words. “There was--When I was still with them, I wasn’t...the nicest to them. I bossed them around a lot, and I didn’t really think about anyone but myself when I ordered them around. All I wanted was to help us survive, but…” he smiles bitterly. “I wasn’t doing anything right at all. 

“One day they took me to a new place for hunting--it was really far out from where we usually went--where we knew it was safe, but I thought it was a good idea when they told me it would be better to find new hunting grounds, even if it was a little risky.

“They sent me off on a different direction to search for food, but I realised a little too late that the place they sent me to was just a dead end and void of any life. I looked for them, but they were already gone.” 

“...How did you know for sure they _left_ you though? Couldn’t they have just been lost themselves?” Hinata asked timidly, unsure if he was treading on thin ice with his questions.

“Their homes were empty by the time I got back to the area we camped out at. I could tell they took everything important and fled.”

Kageyama wouldn’t say he blamed them, really. It was sort of his fault after all. After Oikawa left their pod in search of others, it really became a mess. He tried too hard to help, but he was doing it all the wrong ways, especially when he decided to lay out orders to try and ‘Help’.

He couldn’t really blame them for leaving.

“It doesn’t matter if you were being forceful or not.” Hinata suddenly interrupted, loud and angry sounding. “It’s not fair! Especially if you were just trying to help them. They sound like terrible people.”

Kageyama blinks. “How can you say that when you don’t even know what I was like? I basically told them all what to do, even though we were the same age, and didn’t listen to what they had to say at all.” And really, he didn’t _hate_ them. Sure it was a bitter memory, but they weren’t _that_ bad. It all worked out in the end, anyway. He learned how to hunt, and then he met Daichi and the rest.

“It doesn’t matter, does it? You’re still bossy, but that’s no reason to leave you out to the sharks. You’re giving them too much credit. What they did was not okay!” Hinata pouted, sitting up and clenching his fists. Kageyama rolled his eyes. Shouldn’t _he_ be the angry one here?

Nevertheless, it brings a warmth to Kageyama’s chest at Hinata’s words. He didn’t expect him to defend him about that at all. Really--he kind of expected him to laugh, but that might have just been him worrying too much over what Hinata would say if he told him. he almost laughs, but breaks it off into a small snort. “Sharks aren’t really a problem for us.”

“You know what I mean, Kageyama!”

He does.

“...You’re new pod treats you good though, right? Even if Daichi might be hiding something, the rest of them treat you good?” Hinata asks, eyes questioning.  
He thinks about Kiyoko and Yachi, who always have his back and help him when needed. Daichi, who although, like Hinata said, might be lying to their faces, was still kind to him, and always tries to help him when he needs it--and sometimes he takes it for granted. Nishinoya and Tanaka were a bother, but it was obvious they cared when they asked too many questions or bothered him. Tsukishima, he wasn’t so sure about. He’s just rude, and Kageyama’s not sure they’ll _ever_ get along. But he’s not terrible to him, or anything. All his threats are empty, anyway. And Yamaguchi keeps Tsukishima’s annoying banter to a minimum, anyway. Really--he didn’t even need to question it.

“Yeah,” He hums. “They do.”

~  
A lot of things happen the next night. For one--Kageyama was only looking forward to a simple evening of hunting, but couldn’t seem to find a thing. It’s not long after he’s sulking that he practically swims into Yachi--Or rather, she almost collides with him, choking out all her breath as she tries to fumble out her words.

“Ka-Kageyama! I asked Kiyoko about Sugawara, right? and she actually knew about him--I just finished talking to her and--”

He cuts her off there. “Wait, _what_? She does?”

“Let me finish!” She says, and Kageyama zips his lips shut, stiffly frozen in place as he waits for Yachi to catch her breath and form her words.

She coughs into her hand delicately, and composes herself. “So--like I was saying. It all started a little earlier this evening, and I got Kiyoko alone, like you told me to, and when we were swimming, I casually brought up the name. She seemed really shocked at first, but sort of tried to change the subject? She seemed really spooked after I mentioned the name, to be honest.

“And so I convinced her to tell me a little bit, but she didn’t seem too keen on talking about him. She seemed worried, and she kept looking around, like we might’ve had people listening to us.”

“...And what did she say?” Kageyama uttered.

Yachi narrowed her eyes, probably judging him for speaking while she was still talking. It was still a non threatening pout, but Kageyama briefly apologized under his breath, and she continued.

“ _So,_ I asked about who he was. She didn’t tell me much, but she said that he was an old companion of Daichi’s, and excused herself after that before I could get anything else out of her.” She frowns. “But that’s still something, I guess? Right? Now we have confirmation that they _definitely_ knew each other--and Kiyoko knew him too!”

It wasn’t honestly _that_ much to go on, considering they already knew that Daichi and Sugawara were somehow in relations to one another. But it did open some new ideas. They obviously had a falling out, somewhere along the line, but Kiyoko knew him too, and now it was suddenly taboo to bring up his name. And if she was looking around for someone, could it possibly be that she didn’t want to mention his name when Daichi was around? 

“I’m going to talk to her.” He declares suddenly, swimming up from his spot on the seafloor, waving back to the blonde girl. “Thanks, Yachi.”

“No problem!” she called back. “Be careful!”

He nods, and swims off.

~

It turns out, it’s really hard to get Kiyoko alone to ask her some interrogation-style questions, especially when she’s constantly surrounded by the two uncontrollably fast talking and _annoying_ bodyguards named Tanaka and Nishinoya. 

He has to fight off his everlasting anger at dinner, when he can’t even strike up a conversation with her or even make an _opening_ to talk to her with those two bickering back and forth beside her, catching her in the conversation.

He’s _this_ close to just snapping on them, but that would only draw more attention, and he didn’t need that right now. Instead, he chews on his food with gritted teeth, and Yachi sends him sympathetic looks from across the reef as she chews daintily at her own dinner.

What he doesn’t expect, is for someone to grab his arm as everyone files out of the reef after dinner. It’s so surprising because it isn’t Yachi attempting to give him sympathies about being able to talk to her another time, or Daichi ready to ask him how he feels about spending time with the others, or Tsukishima waiting to bother him--It’s Kiyoko, and the first words that leave her lips are: “Can we talk?” in a hushed voice, looking around to see that everyone else had gone.

He nods, dumbfounded, and follows her lead off the base of their homes and into the murky blue ocean. He doesn’t feel really worried--it’s Kiyoko, after all, and she’s probably one of the most trustworthy people in their pod. But it’s a little unnerving just how _far_ they’ve gone from the vicinity of the others.

She stops suddenly, diving downwards into an anemone-crusted cave, with little fish hovering about and crabs walking along the seafloor stealthily. It looks abandoned, and it’s most definitely not her _home_ , but he goes with the flow, swallowing the lump in his throat.

When they swim through the entrance and into an upward tunnel, he realizes with a slight shock that he’s actually seeing _light_ from inside this place. When they breach the surface, he realises it’s an enclosed cave,covered off from humans but still holding fresh water and air. 

There was rocks and sand and shallow parts everywhere, and Kiyoko swims across the shallows gracefully and leans against a rock, settling comfortably, while Kageyama just stares from his spot above the tunnel entrance.

“So,” She starts, crossing her hands delicately. “You were wondering about Sugawara, right?”

He nods, feeling a bit of color draining from his face. _How did she know? Did Yachi bring up his name?_

“Yachi didn’t say anything about you, but I figured she got this knowledge and idea about Sugawara from somewhere, and there’s only one person she’s been hanging out with lately.” she replies, answering his question. She smiles a bit, but it fades with her next question. “So what do you know about him?”

Kageyama shrugs. “Nothing, really. That’s why I was going to ask.” Or, rather, got Yachi to do so. “I just know him by name.” 

“So you just _happened_ to find that name in your travels? How?” she asks, eyes narrowing and voice a little questioning. 

Wasn’t _he_ the one supposed to do the interrogating? 

“I…” _Sort of can’t tell you that,_ he thinks guiltily, and closes his eyes for a brief moment. “I heard the name in passing, but nobody has been able to tell me who he is.” which is a lie. He shakes his head, and asks, “So who is he? All I know is he was friends with Daichi.”

Kiyoko ignores his information sources description (thankfully) and sighs, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, slightly biting her lip as she pieced her words together.

“Don’t… bring this up with Daichi that I told you this,” She warns, and Kageyama nods. She clears her throat.

“Suga was… he was a great guy. He was close with me, Daichi, and Asahi. We grew up together.”

Kageyama takes in that information, and nods. “...So he was your friend, too?”

Kiyoko nods, but there’s a sad look in her eye. “We all were. His friends, I mean. I haven’t said his name in years. I haven’t even thought about him much lately, and I’m almost certain Daichi is finally starting to recover from the things that happened, and all that. It’s why I didn’t want to bring him up around the others.” She sighs, rubbing her wrists awkwardly. “I’m sorry. This is actually pretty hard for me to talk about.”

“It’s okay,” Kageyama breathes out. _This is more information then he’s gotten out of **anyone** so far, so he’ll take what he can get. Whatever Kiyoko was comfortable with sharing._

“When we were kids, there was no problems between us. We all grew up in the same pod, hunting and learning how to survive together as we got older. We were like siblings--and things were good between us.

“As we got older, Suga started getting curious and wanted to explore the world, and Daichi was enraged, because that would mean they couldn’t see each other anymore. None of us would be able to see him if he started travelling around.” She shakes her head. “I told him that I didn’t mind whatever he did, and Asahi was the same. We wished him luck. But Daichi… he was crushed about it. He didn’t want to be apart from Suga. But it’s not like he could follow him or anything. He especially couldn’t--he had a whole pod to look after as the leader, right?” She shakes her head. “Things went horribly after that. They spent most of the time fighting with each other, ripping at each other's throats, and eventually they decided not to talk to each other at all. They never made up, as far as I know, but one day, Suga just up and left.”

“....So when they fought, they never talked again? And Daichi started hating humans, right?”

She frowns and shakes her head again. “No, he’s mostly always hated humans, but Sugawara leaving like he did didn’t leave anything but a sour taste in his mouth, and now he’s even more protective of his own kind than ever.” she falters, fiddling idly with her fingers as she lost eye contact. “Then Sugawara was assumed dead, and Daichi hasn’t been the same since.”

_Wait, what?_ “....Are you sure? Didn’t he just--vanish somewhere among the humans? How did he--” he gulps. “--Die?” 

Kiyoko looks close to tears, but it might just be the water on her skin. She looks heartbroken, and Kageyama feels for her. He just doesn’t know what to _do_ in a situation like this--whether to comfort her, or let her carry on with her story and keep his distance. It’s not like he could hug her, or anything. Instead, he just awkwardly hovers forward and back. 

“It’s not like we saw it ourselves,” She says, “But...we’re pretty sure. I mean, we haven’t heard from him in years, and it’s not unheard of for us to get killed when we leave our Natural habitats. People--hunters have no problem killing for a skin like ours. Even if Daichi and Sugawara were fighting, he promised to visit us at some point, and hasn’t. Although--we did move, and that’s how we found you, Kageyama, when we were moving to a new place to live as our pod grew. But... “ She sniffles, and yep, she was definitely trying to hold back a tear or two, even if she looked pretty composed. “Suga would have been able to track down his own kind, don’t you think?”

“...His own kind?” He asks, confused. It wasn’t adding up, what she was talking about with the mermaids and the hunter’s. Sugawara was a human, right? What would a hunter do with another human’s skin? Unless--

Kageyama realises it like a punch to the gut, and he feels his blood go cold. 

“Well--” she says, blinking. “He was one of us, after all.”

Kageyama has a hard time swallowing.

“Sugawara was a merman?” He asks, almost to himself, incredulously. Him and Hinata were so far off when looking for evidence that they knew each other. So, _so wrong._ It makes sense now, and he needed to see Hinata as soon as possible. 

“Well, you knew that right?” she asks, eyes squinting. 

“No--I mean. Ugh.” He tries to clear his thoughts with a breath. “Are you telling me he just--grew legs and left here?”

Kiyoko looks thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, that’s what he did. I know how he did it, but I’m not going to tell you because it’s dangerous to do and even worse is that when you transform like that, you’re vulnerable and the humans’ could kill you much more easily in the transition.” Her expression hardens. “You weren’t planning on doing that yourself, were you? Is that why you were asking about Sugawara in the first place, Kageyama?”

He almost chokes. “No! No, I just.” _I didn’t know any of this until now._ “I thought it was possible to transform into a human, but it was just a legend, right? Stories passed down, and stuff... I didn’t think it was possible.”

Her smile is small, but relieved. “We can’t transform into humans, Kageyama. But it is possible to look like them, just an adaption to help us disguise ourselves among them. In order to do that though, we’d have to shed our skins for that. And it hurts.”

“You know from experience?” Kageyama asks, a little alarmed. 

“No, no--with Sugawara--I was trying to help him but I couldn’t do much. It’s just about as painful as you think it is--it’s like ripping layers of skin from our body--but the pain only lasts for an hour, at most.” She blinks. “Daichi couldn’t bear to be there with him for that, so Asahi stepped in to guard him. It’s fast in terms of regenerating skin, but it comes with a price. I was nearby them, but trust me, it’s not a _good_ experience.”

He fidgets uncomfortably. There was a lot of information spinning around his head, and most of it had only been explained to him in half an hour.

So Daichi, Sugawara, Kiyoko, and Asahi had all grown up together, but Sugawara wanted to go on his own to explore the human world, and it had broken Daichi’s heart and they had a falling out. And when He finally got legs, they never heard from him again. Huh.

It feels like every piece of the puzzle was put in place. He now knew what had had happened to Daichi, and it turns out him and Hinata were wrong all along. Daichi wasn’t a traitor, or lying to his own kind--Sugawara _was_ his own kind, and he left to go live with humans.

He knew everything; now he just needed to tell Hinata.

He feels it’s only fair to return the favor to Kiyoko, even if it did reveal what had happened with Hinata on the beach that day, the secret only Daichi and him knew about--him hanging out with a human.

He inhales shakily, gathering his courage. “Kiyoko-san, I think I need to tell you something.”

She perks up, eyeing him in a way that ushers him to continue. 

He doesn’t know how to say it, but he manages. “I know for a fact Sugawara is not dead.”

Her eyes widen. “What? How?” Is all she replies, with a broken exhale. Her expression reveals nothing but shock, or maybe even a bit of anger, which is a weird emotion seeing on her. Uncommon, or rather _never_ seen on Kiyoko Shimizu. 

“That’s not funny, Kageyama. There’s no way you could know--”

“But I do!” He insists, and yep--now it’s all going to come out in his next tumbling breath-- “I met a human on the beach a about a month ago. We started talking and meeting up every night and He _knows_ Sugawara, personally. He’s not bad, I swear--he’s really strange but he taught me how to play weird human games and what a phone is and--”

“You _Talked_ to a human?” She asks, eyes wide, but her gaze softens as she backtracks through his words. “Wait, he knows Sugawara? Kageyama--”

“Kiyoko! Kageyama! It’s an emergency!” 

They both turn to the sound of Yachi behind them, making her way up from the tunnel and breaching, worry clouding her eyes, and possibly tears. 

“I’m sorry--I’m so _so_ sorry, he just--and I-- and I didn’t know what to do but I thought I should look for you first-- then I found you, and now--”

“Slow down,” Kiyoko instructs gently, swimming past Kageyama to put her hand on Yachi’s shoulder, as if to calm the shaky sobs she’s taking. She rubs her arms affectionately, and encourages her to speak again. “Tell us what happened,” she asks patiently.

Yachi takes a big sniffle, and rubs at her eyes. “We have to go. There’s no time to waste--Daichi knows about Hinata, and he’s probably in trouble!”

~

Hinata feels restless for the most part. He’s leaving in little over a week, and that means he’s not going to see Kageyama again for however long his mother decides he doesn’t need to see his grandfather again. Which, last time, ended up being over five years. Would Kageyama be there in five more years? would his mother question him for wanting to come back sooner than the next summer and visit? Would she even _let_ him come here, all by himself?

Probably not. But that’s why he had to make the most of this last week and a half, even if it was only a small amount of time each night they saw each other. And it felt _terrible_ to just sit at his grandfather's’ kitchen table with nothing better to do than wait until nightfall to go see his friend.

It felt like forever, and he didn’t know if he could wait much longer. Why couldn’t he and Kageyama just hang out in the day?

While he broods over the thoughts, his grandfather calls out to him from nearby. 

“You look tired, Shouyou, why not go for a walk?”

Like a lightbulb going off in his head, he slams his hands down onto the table and his smile picks up on his cheeks. “I think I will. Thanks, Grandpa.” What was the harm in waiting a little early for him at their usual spot? Kageyama would come eventually, anyway.

He waves goodbye to his grandfather and he waves back from his spot on the floor with Natsu asleep in his lap and the television running quietly in the background. He closes the door behind him softly, and skips along the sand, following the path to the shore through the forest.

He’s there in five minutes, flat. He hums to himself, kicking stones into the water as the last remnants of the sun fade behind the horizon. _It won’t be long now,_ he thinks, sitting down and drawing pictures in the sand to keep occupied.

A little sooner than later, he hears a swish in the water, and perks up at the sound.

“Kageyama?”

The sound fades, and he assumes it was just a fish flopping against a rock, or something similar to that. Maybe the water rolling with the tide differently. Who knows? Nature created weird sound all the time--he just went with it, gone back to tracing things in the still-warm sand by his feet.

Only, the sound of a quick splash comes back again after a few moments, and this time, before he can say Kageyama’s name in an accusing tone, he feels a cold hand on his foot, dragging him into the water.

It’s cold, like ice prickling at his skin--a small reminder that summer was at it’s close, and nothing like the sun-heated sand he was just lying on.

He kicks wildly at whatever is holding his leg--because it’s _definitely_ not Kageyama--His sense of humor only included dry jokes that nobody but him understood (but it left him smiling to himself) and it most definitely did not include trying to _drown_ Hinata, even in a play fight. besides--his attacker was not letting up in the slightest, pulling him down, down into the water out of the safety of the shallow oasis.

He fights valiantly, but it’s hard to go unscathed when you’re being pulled into the depths, and completely at a disadvantage because _it’s not like he could breath underwater._

From his best guess and judging by the flicker of a large, shiny tail in his peripheral vision occasionally, whatever was pulling him deeper _could_.

He’s kicking--but also choking on the water, and it suctions against the sides of his lungs like a cup filling up.

_I’m going to drown._

Just moments after he thinks that, when he’s taken in a little too much water and his head is starting to go a bit blurry, he’s being pulled up by a hand--a warm one, and he learns he probably wasn’t more than a few feet underwater at most, because he’s suddenly on land again. He chokes the seawater out of his lungs as his face meets the ground, gravity weighing him down against the dirt. He feels like a wet mop, or a soaked dog, with the way his clothes drag him down against the   
dirt, and he feels dizzy.

Once the seasick feelings of his world twirling stop, he manages to blink his eyes open, ignoring the burn of sea water as he looks at the shadow from something on the ground in front of him.

“Are you alright, Hinata?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN   
> Suga was a merman all along GOTCHA THERE DIDNT I
> 
> ALSO  
> only 2 more chapters,,, probably, and then we're done for this one omg
> 
> before I start with any other mermaid Au's (except the daisuga oneshot) I'm probably going to write other things for a while, including a magic/fantasy au i've been thinking about with withces and demons and iwaoi owob
> 
> I hope you like this chapter! I feel it was a bit rushed, but I hope it panned out fine enough? Please kudos and comment, it makes my day!


	9. Out of The Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I HOPE YOU LIKE IT~
> 
> pls go easy on Daichi
> 
> pls

When he’s done heaving seawater out of his lungs and his sight has gone clear again (and looks less like a rotating kaleidoscope) he shakily grabs the hand hovering in front of him, and is pulled to the chest of the man who saved him.

“Suga…?” He asks, coughing as soon as the words leave his lips. 

“It’s okay, I got you.” Suga assures, in that honey-sweet voice of his. Only a second later, that voice is terrifying and threatening, completely transformed with anger--and Hinata’s glad it’s not directed at him.

“What were you thinking, Daichi?” Are the harsh words spat over his shoulder at who he assumes is the one who tried to drown him moments ago. There’s no reply from behind him--it’s eerily silent, as if Suga was yelling at the rippling waves instead of the merman who was presumably behind him--the one he had been itching to meet not too long ago.

Now he felt a little different--still a little safer with Suga, though. Surely Daichi wouldn’t hurt an old friend of his, even if they did get into a big fight however long ago.

Daichi had stayed still and quiet, making Hinata wonder if he really was there. He turns around, albeit hesitantly, and sees the mermaid that supposedly led Kageyama’s pod for the first time.

Daichi Sawamura had broad shoulders and tanned skin--much darker than Kageyama’s, who he’d assumed had represented most of the merfolk population, as they did live at the bottom of the sea--but it surely wasn’t the case for him. His skin morphed around his hips into a deep purplish-blue set of scales, while His eyes were a rich brown. His short hair was similar, if not darker. Sharp nails were attached to his uselessly hovering hands--unsure whether to reach out to them or not-- and Shouyou dreads to think that those clawed fingertips were wrapped around his ankles only moments ago, set on dragging him into the abyss. 

Although he does look like a leader, (the aura around him surely presented one) he looked terrified as he stared at Suga, pale like he had seen a ghost. Which wasn’t too understandable--it probably was unbelievable seeing _him_ here after so long, or even just after they had fought. Hinata still doesn’t know what that was about--but well, it feels like he will soon.

“Is that--” Daichi utters, but cuts himself off. “You Can’t--You can’t possibly be here. You were dead, you never came back--”

“And yet, here I am. Why did you assume I was dead, Daichi?” Suga asks, an eyebrow raised, but the anger hasn’t left his tone yet.

Daichi’s composure flounders, as he waves his hands in a vague formation. “You promised you would come back, and you didn’t! When you left, you said you would visit often, to let us know how you were. You know how long it’s been? You never came back, and I assumed the humans--”

“Oh, come on, Daichi. Really? Did you really think I was going to come back right away after that?” Suga’s anger falters for a brief moment, and he just looks sad. “You told me to leave. What was I _supposed_ to do? I didn’t even want to come back after that.” there’s a wavering pain in his eyes, vulnerability showing easily/

Daichi seems bothered by that, and bites hard his lip. “I was sorry the moment I said it!”

“That doesn’t _mean_ anything! You had plenty of time to apologize before I left, and you never said a word to me! I left here thinking that you hated me!” 

Daichi grows quiet with this, and Suga tries to conceal his pained breathing, and blink out the blur starting to cloud his eyes. Hinata watched the two with silence, and only made himself known again when he sneezes from the cold by accident. Both eyes shoot towards him, and Suga takes a deep breath, trying to change the subject.

“Even with Hinata as proof--you haven’t changed at all. I didn’t want to come back, especially when I knew you’d be just as bitter about humans as before.”

Daichi blinks. “I wasn’t… trying to hurt Hinata earlier. I was only trying to disarm him if he had any weapons, and I figured catching him off guard was the best way to go with that. I didn’t know humans couldn’t last for that long without air.” his eyebrows furrow, and he looks at Hinata, almost shyly, by the way his gaze flickers away for a moment before settling with direct eye contact.. “I’m sorry.” It seemed like he still wasn’t into the idea of apologies, regarding how his expression knots up just _looking_ hinata’s way. But he’ll take it.

“It’s fin--”

“It’s not fine,” Sugawara says, growling. “What if he had drowned you? Based on a petty feeling he’s always had, too.”

“You know it’s not petty.” 

Sugawara bites his lip at that, and looks away, taking a shaky breath. “I know it’s not… petty. I’m sorry. But you could have hurt someone I dearly care about, just because you were afraid of the possibility of him being a threat, Daichi. Do you understand? I can’t just be _okay_ with you using fear as an excuse, here.”

Daichi nods. “It’s… okay. And I didn’t mean to hurt him. Honestly.”

It’s just then that Kageyama arrives on the scene, slashing his way through the water with his tail like a dart of lightning and could swim really fast, if he wanted. Hinata thinks, just as he penetrates the surface of the water, hovering protectively between him and Daichi.

“Are you alright, Hinata?” Kageyama hollers--loudly at that, which scares the daylights out of him for a second time. He doesn’t even face Hinata when he asks, eyes dead set on watching Daichi and floating between the two, tail lashing. Why did he sound so _scared?_ and angry, too?

“Y-yeah? Fine, why?”

He doesn’t answer, but Daichi regards Kageyama without any movement, while Suga just watches from beside Hinata, just as stunned.

Yachi and Kiyoko make their appearance as well, Swimming with quite the speed as they make their way around the crowd of people. Daichi hasn’t moved all that much, but Kiyoko’s gaze becomes watery the moment she sets eyes on Suga, who in return, relaxes at Hinata’s side, reaching forward to grasp at her hands that reach up to land for his.

“Sugawara!” She says, with a pleasant and happy voice, despite the tears in her eyes. 

“Nice to see you again, Kiyoko.” He smiles.

“Are you alright, Hinata?!” Yachi exclaims, rushing up behind Kageyama, grabbing Hinata’s shoulders and looking him up and down for injury. “I could have come sooner, but I was scared and got Kiyoko and Kageyama! I thought they would be more help than I could be with something like this…”

She sniffles, and to Hinata’s horror she starts _crying_.

“Whaa--Yachi! I’m fine, see?!” He squeezes her hand in a comforting motion, and stands up to address to his entire body. Even that sends a few colors into his vision, standing up so suddenly, but he smiles and sits back down. It could have been much worse, really.

She looks up from the ground to smile at him, and he breathes a small sigh of relief. “Daichi wasn’t going to hurt me. I’m okay. He just wanted to make sure I wasn’t a threat.” 

“I didn’t know what he was going to do--He just demanded to know about you and where you were, and I panicked. I shouldn’t have told him, probably, but it seemed urgent and I thought it would be fine as long as it was daytime--because you only come here at night--but then I saw you here early and I went to get Kageyama just in case anything happened. ” fresh tears well up in her eyes, and she rubs frantically. “I’m just glad you’re okay--I’m sorry for crying.”

“You don’t need to be the one apologizing.” Sugawara assures sweetly, coming up behind Hinata with a silent threat in his eyes as they linger on Daichi. “We’re all glad Hinata’s safe.”

Kageyama is gritting his teeth, from what Hinata can see--and Daichi looks just a bit _livid_ back at him. 

“I wouldn’t have done _any_ of this in the first place if it wasn’t for you lying to me, Kageyama. What were you thinking? _Were_ you even thinking when you thought to visit a _human_?”

Kageyama positively droops, but his protective stance still remains in front of Hinata, his eyes never parting from Daichi’s. “I’m sorry I lied,” he grits out, “But I won’t apologize for being friends with him, or seeing him. You were wrong about everything you ever told me, when it comes to him.”

Daichi doesn’t say anymore, but he still looks frustrated. If Hinata could guess right, they would probably be having a discussion later. 

Kageyama looks back behind him, finally seeing Hinata for the first time since he’s barged in on the discussion, and looks _worried_. “You sure you’re okay?” He’s eyeing the goosebumps on Hinata’s skin suspiciously, and Hinata holds his arms closer. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Really! Just a bit cold!”

Kageyama looks upset about that, and hovers awkwardly close, but doesn’t touch him. Hinata briefly wonders if it’s because he’s debating to give him a hug or not, but deciding against it because of his own temperature. --That’s what it looks like, anyway. 

After Sugawara is introduced to Yachi, and Kageyama, who had joined the pod not long after he left--the air begins to fall awkward. Kageyama is looking between Hinata and Daichi--mostly Hinata, and he can _feel_ those eyes on him when he does. Then there’s Sugawara, who’s glances are dedicated to Daichi--not that Hinata can blame him; they haven’t seen each other in a long time, and after fighting first thing once they met again (and after leaving before fixing a fight, too) it leaves them quiet around one another.

Kiyoko leaves after a quick good-bye to Sugawara, and tells Daichi she would tell the others he wouldn't be back for a while--there was obviously some unresolved tension that needed to be sorted out before any of them could leave. Yachi follows her, but not before waving one last time to Hinata on her way out.

Luckily, Sugawara makes it easier on everybody, breaking the dead silence with a harsh sigh.

“Let’s go for a walk, Daichi? I think we need to talk about some things.”

Daichi looks like a kicked puppy, slouching for only a moment before he straightens up with a determined look and swims alongside the shore--but a good few feet away from where Sugawara’s feet were going on the surface. They were both obviously hesitating, from the way they kept their distance.

They faded out somewhere along the ends of the beach, behind the trees, and into the dark of night to sort things out with one another. _Hopefully_ , anyway. It left Kageyama and Hinata alone with one another.

Kageyama is the one to break the silence. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks, hands gripping uselessly at the dirt while he looks Hinata up and down for probably the hundredth time in the last five minutes.

“Yes! I’m sure I’m fine!” Hinata laughs. Kageyama could be such a worrywart when it came to anything like this--not that he blames him; it was pretty serious, he guesses. But it’s certainly not the _first_ time he’s overreacted and the concentration and serious look in his eyes was… kind of cute.

He pretends he _didn’t_ just think that, and coughs quietly, changing his thoughts and the subject at hand.

“So what _was_ that all about, anyway? Suga showed up just in time to help me out there, but I don’t even know what exactly… happened.” It all went by a little fast, after all.

 

“Sugawara isn’t human, for starters.”

“What?!”

“Yeah… Kiyoko told me just before I came here to see you. Sugawara was a merman, but wanted to leave and explore the human world. Hence the, uh, tension between the two. I guess that’s what they were fighting about, when Sugawara left. Leaving in general, that is.”

Hinata’s eyes were as wide as saucers, but a few things seemed to click in his eyes.

“That, uh, would actually make sense of a few things…”

“Like?” Kageyama pushes.

“When Sugawara transferred, nobody knew where he came from. He just said he was from a different city in Japan, but he never really told anyone in detail about much before he got here. He was kind of mysterious, actually. Nobody knew about his home life, either, and despite being pretty open with everyone, it always seemed like he was dodging certain questions. It made a few rumours float around about him. But I thought he was pretty cool! And He’s _awesome_ at volleyball, you know!”

Hinata’s still a little in shock, because how is he supposed to process that, exactly? Sugawara was a merman. It would make sense, in a way, but it still felt like there was a lot missing there. No matter how odd he was in school, he couldn't have jumped to that conclusion anyday.

It wasn’t just the occurence with Sugawara’s past, but a lot of other things around him were also shrouded in mystery when it came to his sudden _appearance._ But besides that, it almost made sense even when he was playing volleyball. There was a mystical form to the way he played, fluid and graceful like dancing in water. Hinata wasn’t the only one who thought that, either, and now that he had the full story, well--it would make sense that he looked like the element of water on land, at least.

There was also the fact that Sugawara could chug water after a practice match by the gallons in a matter of minutes.

Kageyama snorts quietly. “You have such a one track mind.”

“Like you can talk,” Hinata mumbles. “but I totally called that one.”

“Called what?”

“That you guys could turn human! So is it magic, or what?” 

“It’s not magic, stupid.” Kageyama huffs, like he’s explaining it to a toddler, “It’s about adaption. It’s to help us blend in around “Prey” and such.”

Hinata’s nose scrunches, and he leans a bit back. “So you _do_ eat humans after all, then?”

“No! I already told you this, it was probably only like that in old times. Or like, with sirens..”

“So how do you do it? transforming, I mean.”

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Do you really think _I’d_ know how?” he hold up a finger to silence Hinata’s open mouth.

“I don’t, before you say anything. All I know is it’s particularly painful and involves shedding scales and skin.”

“Ew,” Hinata replies, nose still scrunched up and judging. “So there’s no magic aspects to it at all? No phew--boom, and fwaa! --suddenly there’s a tail?”

“ _No_ ” Kageyama groans. “Stop watching movies.”

“Fine, fine,” Hinata sighs, and they go off track into another realm of conversation as the moon rises high, the waves calming down and moving slowly, shining with pale white light along the surface.

Their conversation ends however, when they catch sight of Daichi and Sugawara making their way back from the distance. Even from afar, the both of them could tell Daichi and Suga had settles _some_ things. They stayed close to one another, unlike earlier, and wore tired but light expressions. Calm, even. 

Hopefully, they had solved unresolved problems that lingered on for too long. Or in the least--were on the right track to fixing things together.

It looked like they had, the way they smiled when they approached. 

Sugawara stops a few feet away from the two of them, and looks to Daichi, who clears his throat before speaking. 

“So, me and Suga talked for a long time and I sort of got a bigger picture for what was happening, not that I needed it to know that I was in the wrong. I shouldn’t have done what I did--” he looks across both of them. “--To either of you.” He motions to Kageyama. “I shouldn't have doubted your decision making, and assumed things so quickly. Or tried to take action like I did just when I got angry.” He flashes Hinata a sorry look. “And I need to learn to trust you more. Please forgive me.”

He bows, and kageyama seems to shrink back.

“It’s okay, Daichi…”

“It’s not, and even with you, Hinata--”

Hinata interrupts them both. “We’re all okay, isn’t that the most important part? I forgive you, and I’m sure Kageyama does, too. Right?”

Kageyama nods shyly from his side, and Daichi looks relieved, if not a bit sad when his eyes drift to Hinata. 

“...Thank you, really. I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I misjudged you based on my own problems, and that...wasn’t alright.” he looks to the waves in the distance, a little torn still, seemingly. “I need to apologize to Yachi, too. She didn’t need to get the brunt of my anger, and I only hope she isn’t scared of me, now.”

Hinata still feels a bit misplaced in this conversation, but interrupts Daichi again. “I don’t think she’s scared. You _were_ just trying to protect your own, right? I don’t think she’d blame you for that.”

Daichi, once again, looks partly amazed, and guilty, and Hinata only hopes Sugawara didn’t judge him too much for what he did--it _really_ wasn’t that bad, and he’s almost certain Suga gave him a long scolding for what he did, anyway. 

It’s obvious he only did it because he cared, even if he was acting out on anger. But it made sense, right? It’s not like they dealt with humans every day, so it’s not _that_ weird to be cautious, he assumes. Sure, he might’ve have been scared when it happened, and a little cold when he was drying off, but nobody was actually _hurt_. and he seemed to have an agreement with Kageyama, now, too--which was also good. It seemed like everyone was happy. Even Suga seemed to positively _glow_ when looking over to Daichi now.

“If you don’t mind me asking, though…” Kageyama joins in, and all eyes flood to him. “How did you find out where I was going?”

Daichi looks a little bothered, and Sugawara laughs. “It’s easy to sneak by Daichi, isn’t it? He’s pretty dense. It was probably why he was so angry when he found out, too.”

“ _Suga._ ” Daichi groans. Suga beams. “...It should have been obvious, looking back, but I realized you were leaving at the same time every night, and that it only started happening once you met the human…” There’s red on his face, and Hinata tries not to laugh. It was a little obvious, but well, he had other worries, obviously.

“Anyway!” Suga changes the subject, clapping to cut off any other remarks they wanted to add. “Hinata, would you mind if I stayed the night at your grandfather’s house? I’m afraid without a tail, I can’t exactly stay underwater for the night.”

Hinata shakes his head.trying not to flinch when he just went outright and said it. he was a merman, in the past. Still was. “It’s no problem. We have another spare room.”

“Perfect!” he turns to Daichi and Kageyama. “It’s getting a little late now, so why don’t we catch up tomorrow afternoon? It’ll be a lot warmer and brighter, and we’ll have a better time when we’ve had plenty of sleep.”

they’re all silent for a moment, and Kageyama hesitantly asks “...In the daytime?”

Suga laughs. “Of course! Now that the cats out of the bag, what’s the reason to wait till night time to see each other?”

“But what about my grandfather? And Natsu?” Hinata asks.

Sugawara smiles. “We tell them you’re going to town with me tomorrow to hang out with friends.” He looks to Daichi, all smiles. “It’s fine with you, right? This is a private beach after all.”

Daichi looks a little worried, but he nods. “...It’s okay by me.”

“Then it’s settled!”

the parting between them all is quick, and quiet for the most part. Hinata and Kageyama watch as Suga and Daichi part from afar, the way they hold hands for only a few moments, the touch bringing smiles to their faces. Especially Daichi’s--which Kageyama comments is ‘very unusual’. Apparently he’s never looked so happy before.

“It’s because they missed each other,” Hinata hums, and they go back to saying their goodbyes for the night.

when Sugawara and Hinata arrive at the house, His grandfather is slightly surprised, but pleased nonetheless and offers Suga and Hinata a late dinner before sending them off to bed for the night. 

~

“Hey, Suga?”

Sugawara turns over in his futon, rustling the covers slightly. “Yeah, Hinata?” They’ve just settled into bed, stomachs warm and full of food, while the calming moonlight flooded onto the sheets from the windows at Hinata’s bedside. Natsu had been removed from the room--or rather, she left for the other spare room herself, to give the boys their space. It was just the two of them, and although he was tired, it was the perfect time to ask questions.

“How did you find me in time?” He turns to face Suga, even if he’s blinking darkness out of his eyes to see him--it isn’t doing much anyway. “Like, when Daichi pulled me underwater. How did you even know where to _look_ for me?”

“Ah,” Suga hums thoughtfully. “It was when you stopped answering your phone. It didn’t exactly give you away, or anything, but I was worried when you weren’t responding, because it was so unlike you--and well, you told me enough about this place to gather where you could have been staying. It’s not like there’s any other houses for a few miles.”

“But how did you _find_ me? I was in a secret place cut off from the rest of the beach, not to mention I was underwater… so how?”

Suga laughs quietly. “You think you’re the first person to find that place?”

“Huh?”

“I found that place a long time ago--years ago. I’ve uh, actually been to this particular beach quite a few times in the past.” He pauses, sounding hesitant, but continues. “It’s partly the reason me and Daichi got into a lot of fights, honestly. I was always going closer and closer to land, trying to find new places, and only came back to get yelled at a lot by him. I’m actually surprise he doesn’t have grey hairs yet, dealing with me all that time.” Suga coughs quietly, getting back on track. “But the reason I found you-- I just had a feeling. But more than that, you weren’t on the main section of beach, so I just assumed you were on another part of it.” Suga shrugs, although Hinata couldn’t see very well from his point of view in the dark. 

“So are you guys...okay now?” He didn’t really know if it was appropriate to ask--considering it was none of his business--but he wanted to know.

“...Not yet. Maybe. I’m still kind of mad at him, and I think he’s still holding some small grudges on me as well. But hopefully soon, I think. I’m sure we’ll fix things. We just need to talk again--it’s been too long.”

In Hinata’s opinion, they already looked fine. The way they smiled at each other earlier was fragile, but also certain. And Suga didn’t even hesitate to make plans with the other for the next day. And really, Sugawara _might’ve_ arranged the whole thing for him and Kageyama’s sake, but he highly doubts it. There’s probably some selfish motives in there too. But Hinata’s glad for them. But he doesn’t know what it would _mean_ if they did. Would Sugawara go back to the ocean? Would he stay on land, and visit this time? Would Daichi follow him out of the safety of the ocean?

It was pointless thinking about it, it was late. Instead, he replies to Suga, a small smile forming on his lips.

“I’m glad for you.”

Whatever Sugawara chose, he’d be happy for him. Truly.

~

The next morning comes, and soon after Natsu had dragged them both out of bed, she was obsessed with tugging Sugawara around, talking a mile a minute to him and telling him where he could sit at breakfast, being beside him at all times. It was cute, sort of, and Hinata sent Suga some pitying glances from afar, but he didn’t seem to mind the attention. It didn't last for long anyway. Almost as soon as breakfast was over, their grandfather had cut off any plans Natsu tried to drag him into almost immediately, saying that Hinata would probably want to hang out with his friend for the day. Natsu pouts, but lets him go, and that’s their chance to leave for the day.

They leave for the oasis through the trees, and it’s not long before they come to the clearing, where Daichi, and Kageyama are already waiting for them. They look up when they hear the knowing crack of undergrowth from footsteps, and flinch for only a second before realizing it’s them.

“How did you guys know what time to show up?” Hinata asks, slightly cocking his head to the side.

Kageyama Tsks. “We didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“So you just showed up early?” Sugawara intervenes, smiling. “That’s so like you, Daichi. So how long have you been waiting here?”

“Not long,” Daichi mumbles, still seemingly uncomfortable with Sugawara in his presence again, after so long. Suga snorts.

“Still a gentleman, after all these years. You probably got up at the crack of dawn, didn’t you?” Daichi’s face warms at that, and he sinks lower into the water, while Suga laughs. 

Things go somewhat easily after that. Kiyoko and Yachi show up after a little while, and surprisingly, so does Asahi. Kiyoko mentions that he was the only other they had told, considering he should have been informed _Sugawara was alive_ instead of being left in the dark. 

Sugawara was smart enough to bring a volleyball, and teaches the rest of them how to play, and with a little difficulty at first, they even get a steady game going.

It’s weird, hanging out with them in the open and broad daylight, but it’s nice. And somehow, after the game, when everyone is exhausted, Hinata convinces Kageyama to take a walk with him, as they weren’t exactly tired like the rest.

Daichi wants to protest them going anywhere, but Suga clasps his shoulder, sending Daichi almost _barrelling_ face first into the water, to Kageyama and Hinata’s amusement--and tells them to have fun on their walk.

They go on a walk, and talk about various things. It’s a lot different than being together at night, since he can see Kageyama’s entire face when he talks and nothing is too dark to see anymore. He’s also granted the full view of Kageyama’s tail in the daylight, which is quite breathtaking when it’s not just “shiny” to him. The light reflects off every scale, and now that he can see better, there’s a faint trace of pink in his scales, too, mixed with the various shades of blue.  
He tries to save the image in his mind, because well--he’s not going to see him for a while.

A long while.

And suddenly he’s not feeling so happy.

They don’t end up walking for that much longer before Hinata dives into the water in front of Kageyama, sending droplets everywhere. 

“Wh-Dumbass! don’t just do that! You scared the shit out of me!”

Hinata’s laughing as soon as he comes up from the water, but then Kageyama realizes he’s not _really_ laughing. his eyes are red, and he looks like he might be crying, but Kageyama’s not sure. The water dripping off every inch of his face isn’t helping him decide any better whether he should actually be worried or not, or if Hinata was just trying to be spontaneous to scare him.

Kageyama touches his shoulder--which is still sun-warmed, even after jumping into the cold water like that--and grasps tightly. “Are you Okay, Hinata?”

He shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. Always, _always_ smiling. “I’m gonna miss you when I go.” Is what he says. and oh--now he’s definitely crying.

Kageyama gulps at that, because what should he say here? _me too_ doesn’t sound sincere enough, even if it is how he feels. he just grips his shoulder tighter, and looks away.

“And it sucks,” Hinata continues. “Because I know I can’t just take you with me, and I can’t visit you as much as I please, and it’s so stupidly _unfair_.” He’s clutching at his eyes now, so Kageyama can’t see him.

“I wish I were like you,” Hinata says at last. “I wish I could live with you--just like that, but it’s not that easy--it’s not even possible for me to do that.”

“But I could always live with you,” Kageyama says, surprising himself, and Hinata lets out another laugh. Kageyama flinches. It’s not warm, like his usual ones. It’s cold, and sad.

“I wouldn’t take you away from your home like that, It’s not fair to you either.” he assures, and pauses. “...I can visit you, in the least, but I don’t want to ask you to wait around for me, either. That’s not fair to you. you shouldn’t have to stick to one place for my sake.”

He doesn’t mention he’d do it in a heartbeat to see Hinata. “So what do we do?” Kageyama asks, a little quietly.

“I could...just see you in the summer, I guess? Then you wouldn’t have to wait around here for me throughout the year. I highly doubt my mom will drag us back all the way out here again at any other time.” he shrugs. “It’s the best I got.”

“I guess.”

After a few minutes time in silence, Kageyama finally sighs. “This sucks, Hinata.”

Hinata laughs again, a bit more genuine, but equally as watery as his laugh when he first started crying. “Yeah, it does. I had fun today though. With you, and the others. I think Suga and Daichi are already friends again. He didn’t exactly agree with me last night, but we’re getting there. Maybe they’ll keep in touch this time.”

“That’s good, at least.” Kageyama agrees.

“I haven’t seen Suga this happy in such a long time, and it’s weird, because I always thought he was happy when we were at school? It seems weird to me now, and I feel like I missed a lot.”

“You _do_ miss a lot. You’re stupid.”

“Hey! Even in the last days of seeing one another, you can’t say one nice thing, can you?”

Kageyama shoots him a glare, and with a tint of red on his pale cheeks, he mutters out something.

“What was that?”

“I said I Like you a lot! You’re one of the best friends’ I’ve ever had. That good enough for you?”

That’s...not exactly what he was expecting. 

Hinata reddens suddenly, matching Kageyama. Why was he blushing? He _knew_ he liked him, wasn’t that much obvious? He wouldn’t stick around otherwise, now would he?

Still, it’s hard to look him in the eyes after that, and he settles for eye contact with the water instead until his face cools down.

“I like you too,” He says, with a bout of confidence. Kageyama is silent, and just as he goes to look up at him, there’s a cold feeling on the side of his cheek, and Kageyama backs away, head almost completely dunked underwater. 

He also looks a little scared, judging the way he inches back, eyes a little too wide. Just like the first day they met.

 _Kageyama just kissed me,_ is the first thought through his head, and he feels like he needs to dunk his face in the water too. 

The second thought comes out loud. 

“Just on the cheek?” He asks.

He wants to light himself on fire.

Actually, instead of just thinking about it, he’s certainly going to do that when he gets home. He’s first going to find a box of matches, and leave the house (He doesn’t want to take the house or his family members with him in this, they deserve to be happy and healthy) and he’s going to make sure he’s a safe distance from the house and any trees, and he’s going to make a fire pit, and then throw himself in--

Kageyama’s laugh interrupts his destructive thoughts, and his mind short-circuits at the sound before Kageyama’s leaning in to kiss him on the lips this time, and although his mind is still somewhere else, trying to catch up (how does one recover after hearing the laugh of Kageyama Tobio?) he lifts his wet hands to hold Kageyama’s cheeks, and leans into the kiss.

No matter how happy he is in this moment, there's only one other thing ringing loudly in his head.

They have less than a week left together, after today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tHEY KISSED FINALLY
> 
> Ok so i feel like this chapter wasn't thAT great but I hope I did a well enough job to show what was happening throughout the chapter and that it wasn't too rushed
> 
> ALSO SINCE I DIDNT GET TO WHERE I WANTED IN THIS CHAPTER, THE NEXT CHAPTER IS GOING TO BE SUPER LONG AND ALSO HAVE THE EPILOGUE :))  
> or i might just raise it to 11 chapters ehhh idk
> 
> Please kudos and comment if you like it! and even if I dont reply to ur comments I rlly appreciate them, they honestly make my life. (i also apologize for not replying to your comments earlier, ive been super busy but whenever i read them i get a boost of energy to write tbh)


	10. Hello and Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it omg it's over
> 
> I hope you enjoy the last chapter~ ;u;

Before he came to his grandfather's’ house, a month and a half on a secluded beach with his sister and grandpa sounded like an eternity. Now, having only a week left, he wished time would just slow down a little--it was passing by far too fast.

Tuesday to Thursday was spent outside, as usual. It was like a private party on one half of the beach--a secret party only known to a select few mermaids and Hinata alone, Nobody more. Things were okay, and everyone ignored the elephant in the room for as long as they could.

He got to know Daichi better in that time, who wouldn’t stop apologizing for what he’d done, even how insignificant it had seemed to Hinata now. Yachi spent most of her time with Kageyama and himself, if not kiyoko--who Kageyama introduced as Yachi’s crush--even if it was a little obvious, watching the way she went red whenever they spoke. Tanaka was a ball of excitement, and very easy for him to get along with, even if Kageyama did try to separate Tanaka and Noya from Hinata as much as possible.

He met Asahi and Nishinoya last, and was ultimately surprised by their personalities. Asahi was _big_ , and terrifying upon first meeting, but Nishinoya had calmed him down long enough to shake hands. He was shy--that much Hinata could tell afterwards, but the bigger surprises were watching someone with the height and strength as him get pummeled around by Nishinoya, a mermaid much smaller than him. That, and watching a butterfly land on Asahi’s nose, and seeing the way he froze in terror in fear of hurting it. He figured he’d get along with these new people just as quickly, and he did.

The hard part was watching Sugawara longingly look at the ocean, eyes full of wist and glazed over, not replying when Hinata talked to him as he got lost in thought. once he was caught getting distracted, however, he was fast to put on a charming smile and kindly reply to him, covering the fact that he was _longing._

The worst was when he looked down at his feet swishing through the water with something akin to frustration, with eyebrows pulled close in minor remorse. Hinata couldn’t do anything about it, only feel sympathetic for someone who just reconciled with his family, and couldn’t _be_ with them. 

Sugawara drops the bomb on him when they have two days left at his grandfather’s; he’d been waiting for it, so it’s not much of a surprise, but it still hurts when they’re lying on futon and bed, silent breathing as if they’ve gone to sleep, when Sugawara speaks.

“I’m going to stay here, Hinata.”

He breathes out, without realising he was holding his breath to begin with. The words might have been for a sleeping Hinata--it might’ve been the only way Sugawara could pull himself to say it, hence waiting this long--But it doesn’t feel right to not reply to something like that, even if it wasn’t intended for his ears.

“I know.”

“Are you mad?” Sugawara asks, sounding agitated. They’re still facing opposite ways, Hinata looking at the moon through the window while Suga had been looking at the dark wall across from his own face.

“Not really. I can’t blame you. I’ll miss you at school, though. The team will miss you, too.”

Sugawara huffs out a sad laugh. “I’ll miss them too. I’ll miss you, Hinata.”

“Did you already sign out from the school?”

“No, nothing like that yet. but I’ve asked your grandfather to help me with the arrangements, and posing as a parental guardian to let them release me as a student.”

Hinata furrows his brows. Sits up. “Grandfather? Why him? Didn’t you have someone else in Miyagi?”

Sugawara turns on his back, smiling at Hinata in the dark. “No, I live by myself in Miyagi. I had enough treasure to pawn off and buy an apartment, but that can only go for so long.” in another breath he adds, “You do know I didn’t just shed my tail and walk off naked to live among humans, right? I got help before. All those years ago.”

Hinata raises a brow. “You did? Who helped?” _Who could you trust back then?_ He wants to ask, but keeps quiet, listening to Suga with his full attention.

“Your grandfather, actually.” He smiles.

_what?_

“Really?!” His jaw drops and Sugawara smiles behind his hand. “How?!” Now he’s really listening.

Sugawara shrugs. “I sort of told you before, right? I found that beach oasis before, years ago. I was really curious about humans at the time.” He hums, pulling himself into a sitting position. "I was always travelling to different beaches, going too close to the shallows and driving Daichi insane by doing so. He didn't know where I was half the time, and we got into a lot of arguments about it..." 

He sighs.

“So one day I found your grandfather's beach, and when he caught sight of me, swam to the nearest thing I could find to hide, and I somehow found that little oasis you and Kageyama visit so often. Only, I started talking to your grandfather at some point, and ended up bringing him there too. It's so secluded, it really makes you feel comfortable and covered, but I guess you know that from experience. It was mostly a place I could talk to him without being discovered in, same as you." 

“And then?” 

“And one day I told him of my plans to move to the human world to explore, and he offered his help. I don’t think I could have got out without him, it would have been too risky. I need to thank him again for that, before I go.” He smiles again, but it falls sad.

He holds off his unbelief and amazement about his grandfather keeping a secret like that from him for a moment (because that will **definitely** come into conversation later, if he has anything to do with it.) and taps his foot against Suga’s knee to catch his attention.

“...Is it because of Daichi?”

“A little,” Suga admits, possibly a bit shy. “But I miss my home...my friends, too. I didn’t plan on staying out of water forever, but I wanted to stay out longer than this. But coming here, seeing everyone and talking to them again, it feels like homesickness slapped me in the face the last week, being here.”

Hinata still feels sad at the prospect of his friend leaving, but he nudges him again. “I think you should do it if it makes you happy. Worst case scenario I tell the team you moved to Africa and they don’t believe me, but it’ll work out, i’m sure.” He smiles thinly--all he can manage, really, but Sugawara hugs him with a death grip, pulling his face into the crook of his shoulder so he doesn’t have to worry about smiling for too long.

“Thank you, Hinata.”

~

Kageyama is silent most of the time on the matters about him leaving in two days. He can’t blame him--they’ve obviously both been avoiding the subject on what they’re going to do when it comes down to the inevitable goodbye the have to have. 

But for now, it’s easier to lie in the sand, staring up into the dark sky pointing at stars like they used to.

“I’m pretty sure that one’s the big dipper.”

“Kageyama, no--look. I even showed you a picture earlier, didn’t I? It doesn’t look like that.”

“it _does_.”

“It doesn’t!”

Hinata rolls his eyes, and slaps Kageyama’s hand lightly. That, however, turns into Kageyama tugging him by the arm, and pulling him closer to rest his head on his shoulder. He doesn’t touch Hinata with his tail, which is either slimy and wet, or cold and dry from sitting on land for too long. Either way, he keeps his lower half closest to the water. 

His upper half is trailing though, an Kageyama leans up over Hinata, slightly dry and sand-filled hair drooping. He looked content, but his eye was twitching.

“What?” Hinata laughs. This guy was always pouting, wasn’t he?

Kageyama’s face goes red. “It’s okay to kiss you now, right?” 

Hinata smiles at him, and kicks him in the tail lightly. “No way, one time only, mister.”

Kageyama looks a little crestfallen, and a little confused with his answer. “Oh. Alright.”

“I was being sarcastic!” Hinata cries, sitting up and almost knocking his forehead against Kageyama’s. Great. Now he looked desperate. 

At least Kageyama didn’t really understand human stuff, and just looked embarrassed for not knowing what sarcasm was. He shyly glances downward with bright cheeks. “Oh. ...so that’s a yes?”

“Obviously.” Hinata laughed, moving forward to catch his hand against Kageyama’s cold cheek, and chase those lips with his own. 

Their lips end up mashing together somewhere in the middle, Kageyama not really pulling away from Hinata’s leaning forward. For a fish (well, merman) Kageyama had extremely soft lips, that were somewhat heated despite the lack of warm blood going through his system. Was Kageyama even cold-blooded? He should ask, later.

Kageyama adjusts a nervous hand on Hinata’s waist--uncertain whether it’s ok to keep it there or not, and Hinata encourages him, placing his free hand on top of Kageyama’s, holding it there, before he can pull away.

Hinata deepens the kiss, pulling Kageyama’s bottom lip into his mouth, but ends up biting down a little too hard, causing Kageyama to pull back, holding his lip.

“Why did you bite me? That’s not how humans kiss, is it?” He asks, touching his lip and looking at his fingers, as if he’s going to see blood on them. He looks concerned, or confused, maybe, and Hinata smiles, face feeling red.

“Sorry. No biting then, I guess.”

Kageyama rolls his eyes and pushes him down into the sand again, looking embarrassed as well.

They were both bad at this.

And to make matters worse, Hinata’s head goes straight back to the thoughts regarding his departure in two days. It made the euphoric, happy feeling of being around Kageyama squash down around him like a bucket of cold water.

“So what are we gonna do,” He asks, “When I have to go in two days? Because although I’d love to, I can’t come back every week to kiss you and hang out.” And it _sucked_ , because he can’t even talk to Sugawara about his problems, because he won’t be coming back with him either--not that it’s his place to tell Kageyama that yet. He’s pretty sure Sugawara wanted that to be a surprise for Daichi.

To make matters worse, his only options are possibly to drop everything here, or promise to meet him in a summer's’ time. Neither were great candidates, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. And packing up and moving out to the middle of nowhere and forgetting about school is out of the question, sadly.

Kageyama sighs, rolling over in the sand to face him. They’ve both dried off considerably, so the sand doesn’t cling awkwardly to their skin as much, now. “I don’t know. I can’t swim to Miyagi. Maybe just convince your mom to let you stay here on vacations.”

“Would you even be here in the winter?” How did mermaids live when it came to the changing of seasons? Hibernating?

“No, I’d be swimming to a warmer climate, probably.”

“But you’d still come back here when it gets warm again, right?” he asks, biting his lip.

“Obviously. If there’s a chance I might see you again, then yeah.”

Kageyama says it like it’s easy, but Hinata already feels the knowing pinpricks of tears at the corner of his eyes. Kageyama looks horrified, watching his face shrivel in on itself in pain. He brings a hand up to his eyes to wipe at what might leak out, but he can’t be sure.

“I don’t want to go,” Is the only thing he says, and it comes out with a crack at the end. He didn’t want to get upset in front of Kageyama. He didn’t want to ruin one of his last visits with tears, of all things.

He didn’t want to cry at all, honestly. He didn’t want anyone to know it was hurting him, this whole time, but it really _sucked._ He’s met the best friend he could ever ask for, but he can only see him for a limited time, because it’s not like they can email, or visit each other. _They live in two different worlds._

Kageyama doesn’t seemed bothered by his tears in the slightest, but there’s pain in his eyes too--mirroring his own. He sits up, and opens his arms--uncharacteristic for Kageyama, but Hinata can see his lip trembling, even in the dark.

He launches himself into Kageyama’s arms, and lies there for a while, head against his chest as he sniffles the remainder of his feelings back up.

He could cry on the way home, if necessary, but he didn’t want to spend the last bits of time with Kageyama being sad over what was bound to happen.

~

“So when were you going to tell me you knew about Sugawara?” Hinata asks his grandfather the next day, waiting until Natsu had left to go make sandcastles outside with Sugawara.

His grandfather puts the teacup in his hand down, adjusting his glasses and placing the newspaper onto the table. “He told you?”

“Yeah.” He fiddles with his hands on the tabletop. This feels so weird. This _is_ weird. He’s talking to his grandfather about the fact of mermaids’ existence, and so far he isn’t freaking out that his grandfather _knew all along._

“He needed my help, so I helped him.”

“That’s all you have to say?” He asks, eyebrows raised. “You met a merman! How did you help him get out, anyway?”

His grandfather shrugs a bit. “I hid him for a while and waited until he got used to walking on legs, then i helped him move out to Miyagi.”

“Why there, though? Did you even know we knew each other?”

“I mean,” His grandfather says, “I didn’t _know_ you knew him, but I sent him to Miyagi because I knew it was a good school, and a good place, from what your family told me. I didn’t want to send him to somewhere like Tokyo, where he could be discovered by accident.” He chuckles lightly. “But it was a surprise, seeing him come here the other night, that’s for sure!”

He doesn’t know how to process this, but he figures asking more questions would ease some of his confusion, if only slightly. “Did you know about the other ones?”

He tilts his head, old eyes crinkling at the corners. “I knew of them from him, but I never met any other than Sugawara-san, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“...Did you know about the one I was meeting with?” It feels strange to be asking that, but it would explain the reason he was so lenient with late night walks every night. And sometimes in the day. How much could there be to do by yourself in a place with only trees for miles and miles? It’s not like he was walking to town every night, and in retrospect, he might have been a _little_ bit obvious. Why would his grandfather have not pried before, otherwise?

“I had an inkling,” He hums. “But it’s not like I was sure, or anything. I promised to keep Sugawara-san’s secret till the day I died, so I wasn't about to ask anything.” He sips his tea. “Though It’s not like I wanted to keep it from you, or that I didn’t trust you. I just intended to keep my promise, that’s all. You’re not upset, right?”

Hinata shakes his head almost immediately. He’d be a hypocrite not to understand that feeling. He wanted to share the information of seeing something so _cool_ with his grandfather or sister on day one, but then the issues only pour in from there--like what if someone _told_? What if they didn’t understand and someone got hurt out of it--namely Kageyama? He felt guilty for keeping the secret to himself the whole summer, but it’s not like it was really his place to speak about it, anyway. Other than that, there was always the possibility someone would look at him as crazy for saying such things. It’s understandable to keep quiet about it, all in all.

“So are you going to sign him out of school, then?” He asks his grandfather, who nods. 

“If that’s what Sugawara-san wants, I’ll do it for him.” with a skeptical glance Hinata’s way, he adds: “ _You’re_ okay with his decision, right Shouyou?”

A lot of things run through his mind.

Of course he’s not _ok_ with one of his friends leaving, possibly the only one he could talk about the existence of Kageyama with, too. It’s not fair that he’s leaving him all by himself, and he doesn’t have any way to talk with either of them again unless they keep true to their promises of seeing each other again. It’s not fair he has to lose two friends in a single day. It’s not fair.

He nods. “As long as he’s happy.”

~

They’re on the beach again--it’s not like Kageyama can walk into his beach house, after all--and they’re watching the sunset on the second last day.

Hinata’s fidgeting, for sure--turning the bracelet Kageyama gave him weeks ago round and around his wrist, feeling over the small pink seashells as he turns it numerous times.

He doesn’t know what to say anymore. He doesn’t think Kageyama does, either. They’ve said all their goodbyes weeks ahead of time, their plans to meet up again in the following summer. It sucks, but there’s no other choices, and even if they have nothing left to say, he’s not going to spend it fighting over something they can’t do anything about. 

He wishes he were born a merman. Mermen are cool! and he could swim around all day, looking for lost treasure and hunt fish. Fish might be a tiring meal after eating it your whole life, but Kageyama’s not complaining, so he assumes it’s still good, after all these years. Sea food had variety, anyway. It would be so much easier though, if only he were born in the water. He’s pretty sure fish don’t have to do social studies, or math--and that would be a relief.

“You still have that?” Kageyama asks, cutting through his thoughts.

“Wha--” he follows Kageyama’s eyes down to the bracelet on Hinata’s wrist, and-- “Oh. Yeah. Why wouldn’t I have it?” He doesn’t come off as insensitive, does he? Why on earth would he throw away something Kageyama gave him?

Kageyama shrugs. “I don’t know--I’m not very good at crafting anything, I’d just assume you wouldn’t keep it.”

Hinata looks at the scrappily tied loose ends and the wound too-tightly threads through and around the shells, unprofessional at best. He shrugs. “I like it. And no way would I get rid of it, I’m keeping this forever. Don’t you still have the things I gave you?”

“The flowers and the keychain? Yeah.” He nods. “The flowers are long past wilted though, stuck underwater like that. They lost most of their colour in the water, too.”

“It’s okay, I’ll get you as many flowers as you want. It’s the sentiment that matters, right?”

Kageyama blushes, and looks away. “You’re embarrassing.”

“Says the guy who’s been trailing his hand around mine all night. Why don’t you just hold my hand already if you want to?” Hinata laughs, reaching out for Kageyama’s hand.

“Dumbass!” He mutters, slapping Hinata’s hand away with a grunt, and a red face.

“Sucks to be called out on the truth, doesn’t it Kageyama?” He snorts, but grabs Kageyama’s hand, which has gone slack this time. he doesn't slap him away, and curls his slightly webbed fingers around Hinata’s. He’s extremely careful, even now--he still has hunters’ claws, and is delicate when holding Hinata’s hands, making sure to keep his sharp nails away from Hinata’s much more delicate skin. It’s sweet. He cherishes the moment, committing the feeling of Kageyama’s hand to memory. He’s going to need to remember this in the time they’re apart.

They end up falling asleep in the sand again, and this time Kageyama isn’t afraid to pull Hinata close when they do.

~

When the fated hour of departure comes, he’s just finished packing, and his grandfather takes his bags without so much as a word, nodding his head towards the go.

_His last chance to say goodbye._

With a deep breath and slightly wet eyes, he struts out the door towards the oasis where he met Kageyama for the first time. 

As expected, he’s waiting in the usual spot, tapping his fingers aimlessly on the gravel with a pout on his face as he watches a small crab pass sideways in front of him. He looks annoyed, slightly agitated, if the way his tail is flicking above the water is any indication. But the moment he locks eyes with Hinata, his eyes soften and smooth out, showing the pleasant blue colour to the fullest in the sunlight, like a calm sea.

“You came back,” He says, as if he didn’t expect him to say a proper goodbye. 

“Duh,” Hinata replies, plopping next to him on the ground, twining their fingers together. He’s hesitating with goodbyes, but it need to be said. “My mom’s already got the car parked, and waiting for me. Grandpa is currently telling her that I need a minute, and they obviously have catching up to do, so I have a good ten minutes if I’m lucky.” He smiles faintly. “I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, Kageyama.” Even if they already said dozens of them.

“Did you say goodbye to Sugawara, too?”

“Of course. I said goodbye to him yesterday, when he really left, so he could transform back.” He kicks his feet into the shallow pool, the drops flicking onto Kageyama, although he doesn't seem in the mood to protest how annoying it is, today. “He wanted to give me some time alone with you, so we just parted ways yesterday. I think he’s going to surprise Daichi by coming back.” Hinata giggles.

Kageyama briefly smiles. “I’m finally not going to be the newest member of the pod anymore, so that’ll be nice. I swear I’ll tell you every time he publicly embarrassed Daichi when you come by next year.”

Hinata laughs back with him for a moment, until the silence leaks into the conversation. They have nothing left to say.

“Hey, Kageyama--” he looks up, and suddenly notices the slight mist in the dark haired boy’s eyes. It takes a moment to process, for sure.

“Kageyama… are you crying?” He tilts his head close to get a better look, but Kageyama pushes him away, noisily sniffling anything back up with a grunt as he covers his eyes.

“Shut up! I’m not crying, It’s dirt in my eye. Or air. I don’t know.” He’s looking away now, trying to look tough, but Hinata wishes he could blame nature for the waterfall of tears he’s about to unleash.

Instead of protesting, or making fun of him like he would any other day, He moves forward to leave a lingering kiss on Kageyama’s lips. That effectively shuts his defensive banter up, but it doesn’t do a thing to quiet the little hiccups and sniffles they are both making.

When they part, Hinata doesn’t back away until he’s given Kageyama a solid hug, the mossy grime from his wet skin clinging to Hinata’s face and arms. With a quick wipe to his nose, Hinata stands up on the surface, leaving a few steps between them. Kageyama’s brows are furrowed, and he looks up at Hinata with bubbly, emotional eyes, even if he looks angry. Hinata smiles and waves.

“Bye-bye, Kageyama.”

Kageyama droops, shoulders slightly dropping as he tries to manage a small smile, which is quaky and wobbling at the seams, just like on day one as he waves back.

“Goodbye, Hinata.”

He forces himself to look away from Kageyama, and set his eyes back on the trail, as he runs to the car.

He doesn’t look back.

~

Life back in Miyagi passes like a blur. Not that it goes fast--in fact, it’s agonizingly slow. It’s more like everything around him becomes less important, less noticeable and he goes through the days without processing what’s around him as much. He gets up. Goes to school. Attends volleyball practice, has dinner--then he’s done for the day, and the cycle continues. 

He has his friends, yeah, and although he missed them in the seemingly short time he was gone, he’s less excitable as he used to be. Or so Kouji and Izumi tell him. They don’t pry though, and probably assume it’s some sort of family drama. He doesn’t really want to talk about it, anyway--not that he can. They’d think he’s nuts. The only escapes for a while are playing volleyball and hearing how his friends’ summer vacations went.

Months pass, and he gets better. Less sad about departure, although he’d love if he could just text Kageyama or something. He just wants to hear his voice again, look at his face for a while.

In retrospect, it would have been a wonderful idea to get a _picture_ of him. Or maybe not so great, since that’s leaving a photo print of evidence of his existence. For now, he just twirls the bracelet he was given through his fingers, thumbing the small pink shells when he felt a pit in his stomach.

It gets him all the way to spring, at least.

When his mother brings up the possibility of sending the two of them to their grandfathers’ house again for the summer at dinner one night, Hinata practically throws his chopsticks.

“Please let us go again!” He stammers, all too quickly. His mother hides a chuckle behind the back of her hand, swallowing food before she replies.

“Shouyou, I thought you were so against going there last year. What changed?”

He thinks about Kageyama, whate meeting him had done to his life. It’s weird, because before meeting him, he thought he had all the friends he could ever need, that the people around him were enough. He might’ve known the moment he met him, but he liked Kageyama. A lot. And it was hard imagining that he felt complete before that, because really--meeting Kageyama was probably one of the best things to happen to him. The fact that he almost didn’t go to his grandfather's’ when he did--the fact that he almost didn’t go _at all_ , and protested going… it’s strange. His life would have been a lot different, that’s for sure. It felt like he met his other half that day, almost a year ago.

“A lot,” He simply replies, nibbling at his dinner. “Can we go again?Even if it’s not for the whole summer?”

“Liked it that much, huh.” She muses quietly. Shrugs after. “I’ll see what I can do.”

~

The ride there is _terrible_.

When they stop in a small town for a brief lunch on the way,he practically makes a hole in the diner floor he’s tapping so hard, so impatiently. His mother scolds him, but he starts up again quickly enough, eyes darting to the window so he can see the daylight they were loosing.

If it wasn’t bad enough that his mother was taking her sweet time driving on the most exciting/terrifying day of his life, he ends up stalling them as well, when his nerves get to be too much and they have to take a pit stop every half an hour so he can go to the bathroom and empty his stomach.

“Are you carsick, or something? You can sit up front you know.” His mother says, looking worriedly at him in the rearview mirror. He probably looks terribly pale, and clutching his stomach with a pillow as he eyes the road with dizzy eyes.

“No,” He says, shaking his head. Even that is too much movement for him. “That’s not it.

He’s just so incredibly _nervous_ , is all.

~

He’s out of the car with his suitcases being dragged through the dust behind him in two seconds flat after parking, and he goes to his mother's’ side of the car to kiss her on the cheek before running off with hurried goodbyes, and running through the familiar doors to his grandfather, who was expecting them. 

“Grandpa!” He calls to an empty house. “Me and Natsu are here!” Still nothing.

He shrugs, and takes off his shoes, treading to the kitchen, where a note on the counter lay for him and Natsu, saying to make themselves at home, because he’s out grocery shopping. He shrugs, tosses the note, and pulls his suitcases to the room he stayed in the year previous.

Except, when he opens the door, he sees the guest room is already occupied with clothes and a messed up bed. Huh.

Hinata shrugs, leaving his suitcase at the door of the other spare room. His grandfather probably invited some more family over, since they planned this trip much beforehand this time. Or something. He doesn’t think about it that much--He could just ask the man himself about it when he returned who’s stuff it was.

Him and Natsu waste time walking along the beach, making a sandcastle and collect new seashells that have lined the sand in the years’ time they were gone. He can’t help but stare off into the ocean from time to time, half expecting Kageyama to pop up suddenly He hopes to see him soon.

In the distance, they hear a car engine, and both turn to see a car pulling in and driving up to the house. 

He can’t see well from where he is on the beach, but he can see that there are clearly _two_ people that exited that silhouette of a car. Even squinting doesn’t help him that much, other than seeing two blurry figures make their way inside the house with plastic bags. He shrugs. It’s his grandfathers’ car for sure, anyway.

“Let’s go, Natsu.”

“About time,” She grumbles childishly. “I’m hungry.”

He laughs, and they race to the house.

~

Slamming the door open may have been careless, but he certainly catches the attention of his grandfather, putting groceries away. 

“We’re here!” He says, just as Natsu pushes through from behind him, running up to their grandfather to be lifted. He lifts her up with an exaggerated groan. 

“Getting heavy, aren’t we?” He laughs to Natsu. Turning to Hinata, he adds, “When did you guys get here?”

“About.... Thirty minutes ago, maybe?” He shrugs. He lost track, but it is considerably darker outside than it was when he first left the car. 

“You let yourself in, right? I hope you didn’t spend the whole time outside…”

“Nah, we came in earlier. Dropped our stuff off. Natsu stole some Gummy bears from your pantry, by the way.” 

Natsu glares at him from their grandfather's’ arms. “You said you wouldn’t tell!”

Hinata sticks his tongue out at Natsu, before gasping and pointing in the direction of the guest room. “By the way, what’s up with the stuff in there? You have more family here or something?”

His grandfathers’ eyes widen a fraction in recognition. “Ah! I forgot you haven’t met my guest yet.” He puts Natsu down, and walks around the counter, continuing to put away the groceries. “If you could, you can go introduce yourself. I just sent him off to his room for a while until dinner is ready. You both can go relax as well--I’m sure you’ve had a long day.”

He nods absently, heading toward the guest bedroom.

Since when did his Grandfather have a guest other than family? And why did he fail to mention that to their mother, when she arranged this? He doesn't think about it too hard, shrugs it off, and opens the door.

Sitting there, in all his glory, is Kageyama Tobio, perched up against the wall with pillows reading a book, the tense expression from reading falling into one of shock once he registers Hinata at the door. He looks fairly less pale than last summer, but his skin is still pale, and eyes wide, a shocking blue just as he remembered them. His talon-like claws are gone, as well as the scales littering the sides of his face and arms. He has legs.

“Kage-- how are you here right now?” He asks, voiced slightly raised and bewildered. He’s dreaming, right? Only one way to find out.

He runs up to the shell-shocked Kageyama, and smacks a hand onto his lower calf, digging his stubby fingernails into it.

“Ow! What the hell, Hinata?” Kageyama growls, smacking his hand away, and it hurts. He almost smiles in relief. It’s not a dream, and Kageyama’s actually here right now, yelling at him. He’s never been so happy.

“You’re real!”

Kageyama looks ticked, eyebrows drawn low as he pouts and rubs his now very red leg--but his eyes are still wide, face still pale as he runs his eyes up and down hinata’s form.

“How are you here?” Hinata repeats, grabbing his cheeks, pulling at them slightly. Kageyama doesn’t smack them away this time, but the frown is still there.

“What do you think, dumbass? I did what Sugawara did.”

“ _Why,_ Though?” He breathes, still amazed. Pushing his short black hair out of the way,he sees that even his ears are human-like, lost their sharp fin-like edge and colour. And he can’t stop feeling Kageyama’s face up, which is also a problem. 

“What do you mean, why? I told you I’d see you this year, right?”

“I thought you meant like last year, travelling by sea! I wasn’t even expecting you yet, I thought you were still hibernating or whatever!”

Kageyama frowns. “We don’t hibernate, I told you that. And,” he sighs, running a hand through his short, straight hair. “I wanted to actually _go_ places with you, and do stuff. Normal stuff. I wanted to surprise you. But you ended up surprising me.” He coughs. “Why are you here? Your grandfather didn’t tell me anything about you… visiting.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Hinata frowned. “Well, it’s not like he told me you’d be here, either, but this is so cool!” On a more serious note, he quiets down, pointing to his legs. “Did it... Hurt? How long have you been on legs, anyway?”

He's trying to be angry that Kageyama did this, but it's hard to stay upset when he's just _so glad to see him._ They could aways discuss it later.

“A couple months. Maybe half a year? And I guess so,” he shrugs. “I don’t really remember a lot of it if I’m being honest. I might’ve blacked out a bit.”

“Kageyama…” His lips wobbles, and he rushes forward to hug him. “I can’t believe you did this…”

“Why are you _crying_?!” He almost sounds alarmed, but doesn’t pull back from the hug, sinking into it quickly. “You were supposed to be happy… about this.... I meant I know you said not to, last time we spoke, but I thought it would be easier--”

“I am happy,” Hinata whispers, trying not to sob. and He's being honest. “So, so happy. I missed you so much, Kageyama…”

Kageyama sighs through his nose, his hand reaching up to run a hand through Hinata’s hair. “Dumbass,” he mumbles, hiding his face in Hinata’s shoulder. “I missed you too.”

“How long are you staying? On land, I mean.” 

“A while,” he replies, a bit hesitant. “I didn’t just do this so we could hang out for the summer, you know.”

Hinata’s eyes snap open, and he pulls back from Kageyama in a second, clutching his shoulders tightly. “...What?”

“I wouldn’t do this just for a month and a half!” He says, eyes large. 

“Then what are you going to do, once I leave?”

Kageyama mumbles something, and Hinata smacks his elbow lightly. “Don’t mumble. What did you say?”

“I said I’m going to school with you.” He mumbles a bit louder, cheeks flushed. “I’ve been studying for a few months now since I got legs, and your grandfather has been teaching me some subjects I had trouble with. I don’t really get math that much, but I’ll try my best. And Suga already told me I could have his apartment, because he didn’t need it anymore, and it was close to the school you attend...” He shrugs. “...Are you mad?”

There are new tears forming in his eyes, and he moves forward to kiss Kageyama, not knowing what else to do with all the feelings moving through him. When he parts, there’s a breathtaking smile on his face. “I’m happy,” He declares, clenching Kageyama’s hand tightly. “Thank you, Kageyama.”

~

When they’ve both stopped crying and had a long discussion about the last year without one another, they exit the small guest bedroom, hand in hand. Hinata’s still happily sniffling, but the redness on his face has went down, so he figured it was fine to leave the room.

His grandfather doesn’t look surprised, seeing their hands clasped together, but gives them a small smile as they sit for dinner together.

Things fall into nicely into place after that. Not all of it is easy, especially for Kageyama, still trying to understand having legs, and saying goodbye to his pod. It’s hard on him, Hinata can tell. But when they say goodbye a month later, Hinata’s there for him the whole time, clutching his hand tightly the entire ride home. He’ll help in anyway he can, from here on out.

When they head back to Miyagi, they stick together in school and outside it like an inseparable pair. Kageyama joins the volleyball club, and is surprisingly _very_ good at the sport, now that he’s out of the water and can run on legs. He’s better than Hinata is, not that he’ll admit it.

Things aren’t all perfect, and Kageyama sometimes looks longingly at photos from their summer together--at the ocean, or the pod he stayed with. It’s not uncommon to see him look a little distant, blue eyes glazed over. In time like those, Hinata just grabs his hands, offering him small smiles and kisses as distractions. He promises they’ll visit.

They have more good times than bad, though. They aren’t that good at studying school material (there’s a lot of things they’d much rather do than that), but they study together if they aren’t practicing for their team, and if they aren’t doing either they’re bound to be snuggling on Kageyama’s bed, legs tangled and sleepy. Hinata spends more time at Kageyama’s apartment then his own home nowadays, but his mother doesn’t really mind. She’s basically adopted Kageyama as a second son, anyway.

And as Hinata wakes on his bed in the middle of the afternoon, bleary eyes opening to the man in front of him dozed off and snoring loudly in his face--he can't feel anything but happiness, thanking whatever was out there that let them meet on that fateful day in the water, just past the shoreline. He clutches that hand clasped in his a little tighter, and goes back to sleep with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT**** I changed Suga's backstory on how he found the oasis JUST SLIGHTLY, because it didn't flow well with the companion fic I'm currently writing for them. im srry
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> holy crap
> 
> HOLY CRAP IT's D O N E
> 
> DIDN'T REALLY KNOW HOW TO END IT OFF BUT I MADE IT CHEESY AF INCLUDING THE TITLE IN THE LAST SENTANCE SO I HOPE YOU LIKED???? 
> 
> IT'S BEEN A LONG JOURNEY BUT THANK YOU TO ALL YOU PATIENT SOULS WHO PUT UP WITH MY SLOW AF UPDATES. I wrote the plotline to this fic early last summer after around 8am during an all-nighter I pulled with lots of chocolate and coffee, and frantically writing notes on my ipod because I decided in like 10 minutes the first multichaptered fic I wanted to write for the haikyuu fandom would be about mermaids and kagehina lmao  
> But the idea quickly got big, and I wrote a whole universe before the next night and I was like "I'm never going to complete this" BUT HERE WE ARE!!  
> Well. the first part. But it's a start!
> 
> I might write an epilogue at some point (maybe?) but for now, the Kagehina section of this au is cleared. If I am to write one, it would probably be years later when they're adults, and what their life is like, Kageyama still with legs and such. They would also inherit the beach house from Hinata's grandfather later, and live happily out there, so they can keep the beach under protection and still meet up with the people of the mermaid pod. :3
> 
> Im gonna do the daisuga companion fic at some point, (hopefully soon) but I'm really excited to start another multichaptered fantasy au I've been working on for a while. (with witches, angels, demons, magical creatures, etc.) I hope to have the first draft written sometime soon, but I'm still working out the plotline in my head and in my notebooks! But as for the main couples I can promise it's mainly IwaOi, with Plenty of BokuAka, KuroKen, and DaiSuga. It'll be the first time I'm going to try and manage writing multiple couples at once, and i'm excited !!
> 
> I might try starting two multichap fics at a time, since I REALLY REALLY want to start typing up the bokuaka mermaid au too?? That one may be a bit different from the flow of this one, as I plan to make every fic take place in a different, unspecified area of Japan lol and this one isn't going to take place on a beach, or on the ocean at all, really, so it should be interesting.
> 
> It's been a wild ride, thanks again so much for all the comments, kudos, and fic art that was dedicated to this series! you're all too kind, and I've had a blast writing this story!! ;w; I'm making this rlly cheesy and long but I had a lot of fun, and I hope that everyone enjoyed the last chapter <3
> 
> Until next time!

**Author's Note:**

> So this was something I've wanted to start for a while, and i've rewritten it a few time already, but I think I'm ok with how the first chapter turned out? Please tell me if you like it, or if you want to see anything specific! I have an idea where this story will go, I'm only working out how to end it at the moment, but I'd love to know if there's anything anyone would like me to include in this au!! ;v; thank you for reading~


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